Narrative of Soul against Soul
by Paperclippe
Summary: It's been five years since Midgar was reduced ash, and there are truths hidden in the rubble. But will the truth come out? And what will it change? What will it destroy for Vincent and his already fragile memories? An AFI songfic.
1. Intro, Prelude

(**Author's revised opening notes, January 20, 2010:**

So. What is this all about.

This is nearly a reiteration of my disclaimer from the opening of Chapter XIV, the first chapter from 2010. I've been writing this story for four years, in a way; the gap between the end of 2006 and 2010 is rather obvious, and for that, and my negligence to the story I apologize. Life got in the way of my writing for a while and I'm going to try and prevent that from happening again. I'm hoping something small like fan fiction keeps me on that track. I am coming back to this from a very different view of life but trying to keep the story cohesive. To aid in this, I am writing this with no influence from Advent Children or Dirge of Cerberus (or indeed Crisis Core or Before Crisis, but those are less influential at any rate). This is a story from only from Final Fantasy VII, AFI, and my own mind. Any overlap between this and AC or DC is purely coincidental, if not inevitable.

So. What _is_ this all about.

This is both a song fic and not a song fic. It is an expansive if unwilling collaboration between FFVII, the lyrics (and if you so choose to listen, the feel of the music) of AFI, and my moderately twisted imagination. If you're familiar with the band, it's easy to see how the stories from the mouth of Davey Havok are if not similar than applicable to the story told by Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima, and of course, Hironobu Sakaguchi. They're meant to mesh together as one collaborative work, the lyrics sometimes representing an obvious soundtrack, a character's unvoiced thoughts, or even the context in which a chapter should be taken. If you're completely unfamiliar with the band, never fear, the lyrics are explicit enough to speak for themselves.

That being said, any edits or seeming misrepresentations of the facts are mine and intentional.

With all of that our of the way, we begin.)

**Chapter I - Prelude**

…_kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep…_

He had slept so long, so long. Thirty years. He had lived through so much, so many pivotal points in his life's story and he had never even known that they had taken place, events that would have - should have - involved him, had he only been there. But he wasn't there.

For a long time, Vincent Valentine had pondered the why. Why had he gone to sleep for so long? Hojo had drugged him, put him in a crypt, but why had he lingered? Surely there was no drug that would last for three decades. Was it just because of Lucrecia, because of his lost love? But there was no "just Lucrecia". There was so much that only she and he knew…so much between them that was robbed, robbed by science and time and misfortune. That was what he told himself. It wasn't him, it was…everything else. It was the only thing with which he put faith in himself, and he knew why. Because Lucrecia had loved him, despite everything, despite anything, and she had confessed it to Vincent. He just couldn't figure out why she had left him so quickly, and for such a wretched man.

They had been together. Really together. He had loved her, and she, him. And they had been together. And it was perfect. But there was a flaw in that formula, a flaw he himself wasn't quite willing to confess to yet. Though as he though of the way that her skin had smelled in the dark, he was overcome with a shiver, a lustful shiver which he forced himself to oppress - this was neither the time nor the place. It never was. Not anymore.

Vincent didn't sleep much these days. No, he mostly sat up at night, in a dark corner, or a dark inn, or a dark forest, and he would sit with a cigarette on his lips. Some nights he would light it. Some nights, he would just let it sit there. He had never smoked before, not a day in his life. Never even tried it. But when he started to shake, when he started to worry, he found them in his hands, on his lips, in his lungs. He hated it, but they sedated him. They calmed him. And, he thought, it's not like they would kill him, no. He would never die. He would…never die.

_I die in my daydreams._

It wasn't so much that his life was painful. He pained himself, and he knew it. At first, he had tried to convince himself that it was some kind of repentance, some punishment, something, anything that meant something. But he didn't want to be forgiven. He wanted to linger in the past forever. He wanted to have his Lucrecia back, and he wanted her to love him again. No, no, she did love him. He knew that much. But she wouldn't let herself have him. She was doing the same thing to herself that he was doing. Living in the past. But whatever past she was living in, it didn't involve Vincent. No.

Sometimes he thought he could see her dreams. Dreams of Lucrecia holding the baby she had never held, a tiny silver-haired creature cooing at her, and her blue eyes smiling down at it as she purred its name: "Sephiroth". Vincent cried when he dreamed these things. This was when he lit the cigarette. This was when he bit his lip to hold it in. Sephiroth. Who are you?

He couldn't admit it to himself.


	2. The Great Disappointment

**Chapter II - The Great Disappointment**

_I can remember…_

They told him he was special, they ranted and raved about him from the very moment he was born. He was a miracle child, a miracle. He had no idea what they were talking about. He had no idea who "they" were. They weren't his parents, and they made no secret of it. The professors, Gast and Hojo, told him his mother's name was Jenova, and that he would never know her, but that she was great, so great, such a wonder, and that he couldn't be luckier than to have her for a mother.

_…a place I used to go…_

And then they would rant and rave some more. Women would come in and brush his long silver hair and they would pamper him, between the pokes and prods. It was an endless procession of excess and arrogance and needles. Was it because of him? Of who he was? Or was it only because of his mother, this Jenova? This wonderful woman whom he would never know?

_Chrysanthemums of white…_

He was tall and thin and oblivious. Utterly. Hojo and Gast fought constantly, but when Gast disappeared, Sephiroth didn't assume a thing. Well, he did. He'd simply figured that Gast had quit. That's what people did when they hated their jobs, wasn't it? And with how much the two professors fought, he couldn't figure that Gast would have liked his job very much. Then again, Sephiroth wouldn't know. He never had a job. Not really.

_…they seemed so beautiful._

Not until he was sixteen. It wasn't a job really, but it was hard work. All sorts of physical activity. He had never been a lazy kid, but this seemed excessive. Back breaking labor, tests of stamina, speed, strength, all sorts. At the end of the day, his body burned all over. He felt like he'd been hit by a train. Then they'd give him shots, and he'd feel worse, and he'd want sleep. In the morning, he'd do it all again.

_I can remember…_

Every day, it got a little easier. Then a lot easier, until the machinery and courses they had to put him through were absolutely purposeless. It had gone from boot camp to mindless routine in a matter of weeks. It was just too easy. But one thing never improved. The wrenching pain that burned through him every time Hojo gave him that shot, just before he would go to sleep. He could remember it even now - the stick of the needle into his arm, and then the hammer would plunge. From his forearm, he could feel acid course through his body, from his head to his toes.

_I searched for the amaranth._

The first time, on the day after his sixteenth birthday, was the worst. Not only had that first day of training almost torn his limbs from his body, when that fluid lurched into his system, he'd doubled over, his eyes rolling up into his head, but he remained conscious. He knew he was on the floor, he just couldn't do anything about it. His left arm flailed across his chest, reaching for the right one, where he'd been given the shot, and found that he had jerked away so fast, the needle still stuck out of his arm. Two things happened then, almost simultaneously. He tore out the hypodermic, and he threw up everything in his gut. Then, nothing.

_I'd shut my eyes to see…_

That night, he'd gone to sleep, wishing he was dead. So wracked with pain was his body, his fingers and toes had locked themselves curled. Sephiroth cried until his face was hot and sticky and he could cry no more. When sleep finally graced him, he fell deep into a dream.

_Oh, how I smiled then…_

Everything was white. Everything, and nothing, and he was in the center of it all. Voices spoke all around him, but he could capture none of the words; it was all a rushed whisper in some language he could not decipher. But it was beautiful.

_…so near the cherished ones._

And one voice rose above them all. And it spoke to him, and only to him, and he knew this, because it whispered his name. "Sephiroth", it said, and it soothed away not only the pain from the horrible day that had sent him into this state, but all of the pain he had ever felt in his whole existence, and it was love. Nothing but love. He could feel himself reaching out his arms to the voice, and he felt his lips shaping a word, but he did not know what word until he himself spoke it:

_I knew they would appear…_

"Mother."

Was this Jenova? Was this the wonderful woman that Gast and Hojo had spoken of, whom they too had seemed to love, the only thing they had ever agreed on? He wanted to touch her, but he could not find her. Groping aimlessly in the whiteness, he called again, through the voices and the memories, "Mother!" He heard her speak, then, and he could feel her words reverberate in his skull. "Sephiroth. Keep looking."

_…saw not a single one._

"Mother, where are you?" he asked, he begged of her, but he heard no more words from her, only the baffling whispers into which he had first entered.

_Oh, how I smiled then._

When he awoke, he was overcome with joy, for reasons he could not explain. He had found his mother, or some spiritual semblance of her, and the smile could not be erased from his face. Wanting to tell someone, he found Professor Hojo, of whom he was not fond, but was at least close with, however unwillingly. He met him in his "office", more an offensive smelling laboratory of a thing with papers coated in symbols and numbers spewed out every which way, and at a "desk", which was actually a table covered in sticky tack, cork board, and all sorts of vile things in phials, sat Hojo, exactly how Sephiroth remembered him. He had long, greasy black hair, and greasy white skin to match that was pocked with acne scars from his younger days (a conundrum for Sephiroth, who was convinced that Hojo had no such "younger days"). The lab coat he never didn't wear was soiled, not just in spots, but a thick coat of grime coated it in addition to the spots. Thick glasses had their share of dirt covering them, and Sephiroth wondered how Hojo could see out of the glasses he clearly needed to see, judging by their girth. He surmised that the professor had neither bathed nor been laid in twenty years.

_Waiting so patiently._

"Can I talk to you?" Sephiroth asked quietly, his voice unnaturally low and somber for a sixteen-year-old boy.

Not looking up, Hojo responded, "As soon as you wipe that asinine grin off of your face."

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. "That was what I wanted to talk to you about.."

"The grin? Don't worry, it happens when things go right. It'll go away in time," he mocked.

Pouting, Sephiroth responded, "I'm being serious, Hojo. Do you want to listen or not?" He was very strict with the professor; he had to be. Hojo was always just so involved with…Hojo.

The professor looked up, adjusting his glasses, "What is it."

"I had a dream," began Sephiroth, though he wasn't really sure of where to go from there. He paused, realizing that this hadn't been thought through at all, so he simply started to blurt out everything he could remember. He told Hojo of the staunch whiteness, and of the voices, and the overwhelming feeling of love, and… "Hojo, I think my mother was there. No, I know she was. What…what…I mean…did you really know her?"

_I'd make a wish…_

Oh, he hoped that the answer would be different. He hoped that the oily man before him would suddenly divulge a tale of a beautiful, intelligent woman who had born a child that she could not raise for some heroic reason and now her son was left to carry on her brilliant legacy, just as soon as he knew what it was.

But that isn't what Hojo said.

After an awkward moment, and another adjustment of the glasses, he said this: "Boy, listen. No one really knew your mother. Gast and I…well, we found her, I suppose you could say, and there was nothing we could do for her… And now that Gast is dead… Look, maybe I'll tell you when you're older. As for your dream, it's touching. I'm sure you miss her very much. But I wouldn't put too much behind it - it's just a dream, after all. Just put it out of your mind."

All of this Sephiroth listened to almost unwillingly; it wasn't what he'd wanted to hear. Standing there, taking it all in, his fists became balls as Hojo dismissed what Sephiroth had thought to be the first truly spiritual experience of his life. And here was this…this man…telling him to throw it all to the wind, it's nothing, you're just a kid. Bullshit.

_…and bleed._

He launched an arm out across the table and grabbed Hojo by the neck of his coat, jerking him up from his chair. Engaging him in a stare down, Sephiroth's brilliant aqua eyes forced themselves into Hojo's beady brown ones. The boy's back hunched over the desk as his breath pushed its way out of his lungs and between his teeth. "Didn't you hear a word I just said?" he hissed. "This is the only thing that's really ever made me feel something! And you tell me to put it out of my mind? You son of a bitch."

It was only now that Sephiroth realized he had Hojo held a foot over his chair and that the man was afraid, truly afraid, and yet somewhat pleased, judging by the look on his face. Sucking in a deep, staggered breath, Sephiroth put the professor down. Then he himself sat in a chair positioned on the side of the desk where he had been standing, and he put his face in his hands, and begged. "Please. Hojo. Tell me where my mother is." However, Hojo said nothing. Only shook his head, his face twisting into something of a pinched smile. Sephiroth got up and stormed out.

_While I waited, I was wasting away._

For the next few days, Sephiroth remained in his room, lingering silently. He refused his meals, he refused any contact with anyone, he even refused Hojo when he came banging on the door, first insisting it was time to "practice", which was what he referred to Sephiroth's strenuous exercise as, then telling him that he was sorry, that Sephiroth should come out, and that he "might know something" about Jenova. What Sephiroth was doing during all this was trying to force his mind to sleep.

_I can remember, dreamt them so vividly._

When he would find dreams, he would return again to the white place, and the voices that had only been hazy whispers before were now egging him on, telling him to find Jenova, because she needed him. He could feel them now, and their fingers were soft and calm and light, and he loved them.

_Soft creatures draped in white, light kisses gracing me._

He clung to these dreams like they were sustaining him, and on some level, they were. However, during this period of seclusion, he became a waif, thin and long and sick and ugly, but his eyes were always alert, and his mind never missed anything. There was one downside to his experiment though: being that his room was not large, housing nothing more than a bed, a couch, a dresser, and a small bathroom, he became increasingly more antsy, overwhelmingly nervous. He could no longer reach sleep. Thus, he gave up. He resigned himself to lead whatever life Hojo and Shin-Ra Incorporated held for him, finding himself in SOLDIER, and working his way quickly up through the ranks until he was not only First Class, he was the best, the one all of the others were striving to be. He was something of an inspiration. And he was only twenty-five.

Through all of this, however, Sephiroth never stopped having the dreams of the white place, of the calls for his mother, of his mother, by his mother. Swearing he heard her voice in his sleep, he would try to capture it, to enclose it in a memory in those precious few moments between sleep and consciousness, but it always escaped him. While he was awake, he was without her, without any lingering residue of his dreams, but for that remaining bit of need, need to find her, need to save her, and he didn't even know if she was alive! Sometimes, though, sometimes he would find himself awake, but drifting, in that daydream state that cannot really be defined unless you are in it, knowing all that is going on around you but being completely oblivious. It was there he could hear her most clearly. He would cling to those moments as long as he could, but he was always jarred back to reality, just a moment too soon.

_I can remember when I first realized…_

But he began to lose hope. Maybe, he told himself, maybe they were just dreams. Maybe he really was just a kid without a mother. Perhaps she was dead, dead and buried and he would never see her so long as he lived. It had happened to millions before him; why was he any different?

_…dreams were the only place to see them._

And he began to follow the advice Hojo had given him nine years ago.

"Just put it out of your mind."

"It's just a dream, after all."

_While I waited, I was wasting away. Hope was wasting away. Faith was wasting away. I was wasting away._

Sephiroth tried hard to do this, to ignore it, to convince himself that he was just longing for something he had never had, could never have, because it was practically the only thing he could never have. And for a while, it seemed to work.

Until one day, Sephiroth came to Nibelheim.

Routine mission. Monsters at a mako reactor. No big thing. But for one of the kids in his squad, it was. He was coming home, and Sephiroth decided to smile on him for one moment, being now the superstar that he was. Besides, the kid was a failure. What harm could it do to cheer him up a bit. When they entered the town he launched into a little spiel about how nice it must be to have some place to call home, seeing as he had never had one. That was what he had resigned himself to, at least. No one had ever told him where Jenova had come from, and so he was motherless and homeless, but this boy wasn't. His home was here and his mother was here and Cloud was his name. Cloud Strife. Hell of a name. But who was Sephiroth to talk.

It was a boring trip, for the most part. There was a girl there who was to be their guide. She was short, with fluffy brown hair and big, sad eyes. She was pretty enough. Sephiroth only really learned her name later, though he must have known it at one point. Tifa, it was. He took a picture with her, a picture that he would later…well, never mind that for now.

No, the mission was boring until one night, Sephiroth found himself alone in Shin-Ra Mansion, a big, old, dingy house with about seven thousand rooms and absolutely nothing else. Sephiroth, despite his best efforts, could not sleep this night. He wandered the mansion aimlessly, looking for something, anything to occupy his mind. Old books abounded, all of zero interest to the silver-haired man. He returned to his room, hidden in the upper recesses of the manor, and to the right of the main entrance. In the room, there was a stone pillar that served no purpose. From what he had seen, there was no counterpart on the left side, nor anywhere else in the mansion. Sephiroth wondered if perhaps it was meant to be a fireplace, but for whatever reason, the masons at work on it gave up mid-structure and just bricked it off. No, because then it would be concave, not convex, he noted. Rising from his seat on the bed, he approached the pillar. First, he eyed it up, finding no flaw. Laying his ear against it he listened, as though he expected the rocks to talk to him. Who knew, maybe they would. But nothing. He banged on it with his fist. One, two, three. Returning to him was a slight echo. The structure was hollow.

Backing away from it, Sephiroth smiled. He had found something to play with. Once more, he studied it with his eyes, and to his amazement, he found a small fissure that ran in a rectangle along the whole thing. No, not a fissure, more like…a door. The smile expanded. He pushed on the door. Nothing. Harrumphing, he got a bit of a running start at the grey bricks, and shoved on them, hoping only that they would not crumble into four billion tiny pieces beneath his fingers. They did not, and in fact, they complied with his urgings somewhat easily. The stone door lurched open a few inches, enough for Sephiroth the wiggle his fingers into and jimmy with all of his might until the door slid wide enough for a man to pass through. Which was just what he did. Knowing what he would find, he probably never would have done any such thing.

He worked his way slowly down a long, rickety, spiral staircase, keeping his hands on the wall to make sure he didn't stray too far and plummet down the vast expanse that lay between him and the ground. Cautiously reaching the last stair, he found himself in a dark hallway, straight out of someone's nightmares. He traversed it slowly, looking around to make sure the walls didn't cave in on him suddenly; they looked rather suspicious. Suddenly, his eyes lighted on a door, old and wooden and crumbling, and he moved toward it slowly, hesitantly. A weird vibe seemed to permeate his soul, and he began to feel sad, and alone. Sephiroth closed his eyes and shook it off, but resolved not to open the door. Instead he continued down the shaft where the earth was purple and moisture lingered in the air like it had just rained. It felt like a crypt…a grave…and it smelt of death. The sensation was an unwelcome one.

Laying before him, now, was another door, and he had no choice but to enter this one should he want to continue on his adventure. Seeing as he still did not want to venture back to the other door, he reached for the knob on this one. It came open with an ancient creek, but it did so easily, as if someone had gotten away from here quickly, not even thinking to securely shut the door. Sephiroth shook his head vigorously. Where were these thoughts coming from! It was an old house, it had been here a long time. The door had probably just worn down from being used a long time ago. That was all.

A library. That's what this was. A library. It was dark, much darker than the hallway where the light from upstairs had somehow found its way down the spiraling staircase, but with his hands, Sephiroth could make out the spines of books, and he shuffled through a few, feeling their weight, their ancient, rotting binding. A series of books fell flat on the case, stirring up dust, and Sephiroth coughed, walking forward with his head bowed, hacking into the palm of his hand, when he bumped into something, and a glass object clattered to the floor, but did not break. Sephiroth decided he needed light. Producing from his pocket a small lighter he had never needed to use but was too lazy to get rid of, he thanked his procrastination and ignited it. Around him, a small orb of room was revealed, enough for him to show a path to a knob on the wall, the adjustable kind used for mako lamps, and he turned it to a subtle gassy glow that the earth's natural fuel was known for, and he extinguished the lighter. Now the room was bathed in soft light and thousands upon thousands of books, looking like record books, were illuminated. Sephiroth whirled around in the room, unable to comprehend what he had just found, and he saw that which he had bumped his hips against - a desk, old and oak, and still littered with papers, as though someone had left here in quite a hurry, in the middle of his work…

What was this, going on in his head! He scoffed at it, and examined the desk. At first, his eyes passed over the yellowing papers like nothing doing, but there was something strange about them. On the top few sheets, there seemed to be a few sticky drops of something, like ink or soda or blood.

God, no, it wasn't blood! Christ, he was losing it down here. Somebody probably spilled their coffee. After all, it looked like they'd been working hard down here. Flicking through some more paper, his eyes skimmed the pages dully until they hit something he wasn't expecting, not in the least, at least not here.

JENOVA.

Sephiroth blinked hard, convinced he had read wrong. He shook the paper, as though that would make a difference, and held it closer to his face, trying to read deeply into the paper. And he read, "…current status on JENOVA project. Subject 1 (one Lucrecia Winthrop, age 29, as referred to on page 34, document B in subject report and liability waver under tenure of Shin-Ra Electric Power Company, Research and Development division) reports normal prenatal development of fetus at 18 weeks…" Confused, Sephiroth read on, "…JENOVA cells causing no negative effects to the fetus; however, no extraordinary growth or development has been discovered at this stage of germination, as displayed in sonograms taken at both 17 and 18 weeks (fig. 29c, d)."

JENOVA cells? Was this just some coincidence?

_Never, never wanted this…_

His mother, Jenova, was she somehow involved in this…this project? He shuffled on the desk, looking for anything else that was familiar, praying nothing was, but there it was before his eyes, a name he despised more than anything else, written in a sloppy, ugly signature, and beneath it,

"Professors Jeremiah Gast, Tavarius Hojo". Hojo. Then he knew something about this. Determinedly, Sephiroth sat at the desk now, shuffling deeper into the papers, but he found nothing. Either no progress had been made since this report had been made, or he wasn't looking in the right place. Rising quickly from the desk, he crushed something beneath his foot - the object he had knocked off of the table, the glass thing. Cautiously, he picked up his foot, and looked beneath it. The phial had burst violently under his two hundred pound frame, and all that remained now were numerous glass shards, a purple slimy substance that glimmered in the dim light, and a label, which Sephiroth bent down to pick up the label with gloved fingers.

"**JENOVA sample** - 36/4"

He didn't know what that meant, exactly, but as he cast his look from the piece of paper that was once attached to the glass down to what the glass had once contained, he found that the purple ooze…why…it was…writhing! It was still alive! Sephiroth was horrified, but could not tear his eyes away. In that moment, he seemed possessed, though he was aware of and slightly disgusted by what he was about to do. Peeling off the leather glove that was like a second skin, Sephiroth got down on his knees and let his fingers dip into the writhing mass. For a moment, it was just cold and sticky, like moist maggots in his pores, but then…

Everything was white. Everything was beautiful. Everything was clean. Everything was love.

"Mother…"

"Sephiroth…"

"Mother…!"

And it was gone again.

_Always wanted to believe._

He didn't know what that meant, exactly, but he was about to find out. As he looked down to the floorboards, he found the purple goop was missing. No, not missing, it had found its way, somehow, onto his hand…into his hand! It was absorbing into his skin! He watched this, and suddenly, he had the urge to purge himself, which he did, atop the shards of glass, and then he clutched his bare hand, and like a child, stupidly, he put it into his mouth. A chill rang down his spine, and he stood up straight as he could. Sephiroth began to tear the library apart.

_Never, never wanted this…_

"…An apparently dead organism was found in a 2000 year old geological stratum. Professor Gast named that organism JENOVA…" Found? Dead? Two thousand years old? There must be some mistake, he thought. There must be some mistake.

"X Year, X Month, X Day. Jenova confirmed to be an Ancient…" An Ancient? Like in the stories of the Promised Land? But that's all…well, it's all bullshit.

"X Year, X Month, X Day. Jenova Project approved. The use of Mako Reactor 1 approved for use…" Those fucking mako reactors…they'll be the death of us all. Professor Gast... Why didn't you tell me anything? ...Why did you die?

Sephiroth read himself into a frenzy, and soon he was overwhelmed with information, data that rattled in his head, shaking him from the firm grip he thought he had on reality. Who was Jenova, or JENOVA, really? And who the hell was this Lucrecia woman? And then he found it. His birth record, wedged in the back of a record book like someone's trash:  
Name: Valentino, Sephiroth Gabriel  
Date of Birth: August 16  
Weight: 8lbs, 10oz  
Height: 24"  
Mother: Winthrop, Lucrecia Mae  
Date of Birth: Mar 6  
Age: 30  
Father: Hojo, Tavarius  
Date of Birth: Feb 24  
Age: 33

And there were his tiny footprints, etched forever into his mind. Stamped on a page. His mother's name was not Jenova, then. It was Lucrecia. And Hojo was his father. And he began to laugh.

_How could have I become…?_

Then Zack, that arrogant bastard, had the audacity to come in and question him. Question Sephiroth, as though he had any business doing so. But dear god, he was only a human, where as Sephiroth was something…something more. Jenova was in him, and Jenova was him, and he would save her, and he would save this planet just as she had intended. Oh, it was all so beautiful, in those moments, how wonderful and possible the world seemed, and he would wipe away the humans from the earth and leave it for the Cetra, the CETRA, the way that they had planned.

And he had no father. Jenova was his mother and Jenova was all he needed! And he would burn them all to the ground!

They told him he was special. And as he sat there, in the dark, looking at his weary face in a mirror, at the age of thirty-five, he understood it was all a lie. Oh, he was special alright. So special he could have had the planet. So special he had, for a few moments, brought Hell to earth, threatened the lives of everything on it. But it seemed, as he sat there, lonely, looking a mirror, that the Jenova inside him was beginning to die. He was barely anything more than human, regardless of the therapies and treatments and training and injections. He was still Jenova's son. He believed that in his heart. And he believed his mother would never abandon her child. But if that was so, then why had he failed? Why was he alone and small and meaningless now? Why was he crumpled up in a corner, cold, looking at his face in a mirror, knowing exactly where it all went wrong?

He hated who he was, and who he had become, and who he would never be again. And he was still alive. And he would never die. With all the force in his body, he reared back and threw himself forward, his forehead shattering the mirror into a thousand tiny fragments; he never wanted to see his face. He bled, just like any human, and the blood was warm and sticky as it dripped down his face. And he began to cry.

They told him he was special.

_But you promised…me._


	3. The Mother in Me pt I

**Chapter III - The Mother in Me pt I**

_Caught in a world that's plagued by something they call love…_

She bowed her head. Her hands were tired, so tired, simply from being wrung over and over against for years, everyday. And that was all Lucrecia did. She wrung her hands until the joints stung and ached, but the JENOVA inside of her took care of her. Arthritic she was not, nor feeble, even though sometimes that was all she could feel - aches and weakness.

Lucrecia sat. He once shimmering light brown hair was dull and cold from so many years away from the sun, and her blue eyes were dark. They hadn't always been that way. She used to be about to smile with her eyes. Vincent…what had he called them? Sapphires of hope…oh, why had she ever left him?

It was so many years ago…

_A paradigm of illness is the beast I have become._

Vincent had thought she was beautiful, and of that he made no secret. He was a bold young man back then, in his sharp blue suit. All of the Turks wore them, but that suit belonged to Vincent. He had cut such a figure in that uniform, looking so proud, so sharp, with such a determined frown. Brown eyes were severe and black hair was always so neatly combed, professional, even if he could not keep it trimmed. And he had broken all of that to tell her she was beautiful, that she was an angel, that he would do absolutely anything she could ever ask of him. And she had turned him away. How stupid she had been!

It didn't matter now, though. Lucrecia was beautiful no longer, in her eyes. She was like a puzzle, and with so many pieces missing, she couldn't even tell what the picture was supposed to be, let alone conceive of whether or not it was beautiful. That was what she saw in the reflection of herself in the ice, in this ice castle she had claimed for herself, where she was an ice queen.

But once, she had been a mother.

_The sights I have seen could nearly bring me to my knees._

"Lucrecia, dear, are you sure you want to do this?" Professor Gast rubbed his beard and looked at the girl, well, a girl to him, a young woman to most. She was small, thin but not skinny, with glossy, long brown hair, tied back, of course, and happy blue eyes through which her intelligence shown. Her favorite feature, however, was always her hands - they were long-fingered and steady, and they seemed old and wise by themselves, for she was trained as a doctor and as a general surgeon, but she had given up her career as a physician to become a medical research engineer for Shin-Ra Incorporated. The pay wasn't bad, but it was the excitement that kept her here, especially with the birth of the JENOVA Project. Finding the intact body of a two-thousand year old Ancient - or Cetra, as she learned they were really called - was something no one had ever done before, and being as she was the only woman on the project, she was certainly breaking new ground. This was something that could change her life, and she was determined.

"Yes, sir. I definitely want to do this. From the moment you thought of it, I thought of how pivotal a trial like this would be for our team, and seeing as I'm the only member of the team who really can…" she patted her tummy, "…yes, Professor. I'll carry the baby." She nodded, signifying her finality, and she folded her hands on the desk at which she sat in the basement of Shin-Ra Mansion.

Jeremiah Gast's expression was unreadable, and for good reason: he was conflicted about the issue. He wished he had never thought it up. Of course he wanted to see an Ancient baby born, and to be able to track its development, and the fact that he had a mother ready and willing and able, and a woman he knew and could trust, at that…

But therein lie the problem. Gast knew Lucrecia, knew her well, and respected her as much as he respected any human being. If anything were to go wrong…well, he hated to say that he would feel worse about causing pain to someone he knew as to someone he didn't, but of course it was so. It was as true for him as it was for any person. He couldn't bear to put her in pain. Then again, she was a doctor, she could take care of herself, so far as knowledge went, and she would always be near. Sighing, he resigned to a decision.

"Alright, Lucrecia. You can do this."

"Thank you, Pr -"

"But," he cut her off, "I'll expect you to be one hundred percent truthful with me. If anything - and I mean anything - goes wrong, we're aborting the baby, and we're aborting the trial." He was deadly serious. Lucrecia, on the other hand, was blissful.

"Alright, Jerry. I promise. Besides. What could possibly go wrong?"

And oh, that ignorance was so sweet while it lasted.

Gast smiled uneasily. He told her that he hadn't quite deciphered the replication rate of JENOVA cells when transplanted into the human body, let alone the human womb, so he needed to run a few more tests before they could begin. He told her though, that both the father and she would need to run a JENOVA integration, that was, to put JENOVA cells to work inside the functioning bodies of them, so she would have to select a male and bring him to the lab, where she and he could start the same course of treatment. Then she could be artificially inseminated or…well, whatever else she should choose. Lucrecia laughed at this, Gast's inability to acknowledge the fact that a twenty-nine year old woman might actually have sex. He quickly followed this up with, "But I don't want to rush you, so choose the father wisely. I know you're not married Lucrecia, and remember. This isn't about love." She nodded, comprehending. She would pick someone with a strong genetic code, or at least as much of one that could be surmised from dinner and a movie. The thought made her smile. Dinner and a movie. Why, she hadn't been on a date in…ever?

Lucrecia thanked Gast again and exited the basement, letting herself up into the sunny day that hung it's face over Nibelheim. At least they had stuck her in a pretty location, she thought, with a view of the mountains. That was where they had found JENOVA. She had not been there, but she had heard the story enough to feel like she was. A few SOLDIERs were up the mountain, supervising the ground breaking for Mako Reactor 1 when a small landslide had occurred, revealing what the on-site workers thought was a frozen pond or small river, and in it was a blue woman, who they all said - and their stories did agree - had been looking at them. But when the scientists were called in to see just what had been found, and Lucrecia had been one of them, just in case an autopsy was needed, JENOVA's eyes were closed. They thought she was dead, but when they hooked her up to an EEG, brainwave patters were detected, and she did seem to respond to painful stimuli, though everything else was non-functioning. It was almost as though she was in some sort of suspended animation or something, and they couldn't cut her up (legally) if she still displayed any sign of life. So far as science was concerned, this JENOVA had been in a coma for two-thousand years. There certainly was mystery around her, that blue woman, and Lucrecia felt it every time she journeyed up Mt. Nibel to see her. In some way, she found JENOVA beautiful. She had to, JENOVA was mystery, seduction, and Lucrecia was about to give birth to her baby. Yes, JENOVA was beautiful.

She passed through the gates of the manor and entered the town, where she found a few Turks lingering not far from their posts. Of course they were never where they were supposed to be; it wasn't that they weren't reliable, just that there was virtually nothing to do in Nibelheim, let alone anything dangerous, unless you were horribly allergic to dust and antiquing. Vincent Valentine, one of the Turks, caught sight of Lucrecia from the corner of his eye and he rushed to greet her. The two had formed something of a bond during the two months since they both had arrived, nothing more than a deep enjoyment of one another's company, though Vincent often told Lucrecia he thought she was quite pretty, beautiful, even. It wasn't flirtatious, she told herself, it was more like a flooding of honesty, as though he knew some secret so great he just had to tell someone. Lucrecia found it charming. In fact, it made her blush. But they were only friends. She told herself.

"There she is!" Vincent called, though he was addressing her directly, "Why don't you take off that lab coat and join me for lunch?"

Lucrecia laughed and did as she was told, stripping off the coat. She often wandered about in it, forgetting she had it on, going shopping and to dinner with Professors Gast and Hojo, who also had a tendency to forget to change. Then she allowed Vincent to embrace her, and she returned the hug. But it was only friendly. "Where for lunch?" she asked.

"I dunno," responded the Turk, "anywhere you like. My treat."

It wasn't like Nibelheim had a huge gourmet selection of restaurants, but Vincent had never treated before. He'd tried to sneak it past her, but she'd never let him. She grinned a little.

"Let's go to On the Rocks." It was a daring suggesting, being more a bar than a restaurant, but the food was good, and Lucrecia wasn't opposed to a little intoxication every now and again. After all, it might be the last time she would get to drink in a long time. Vincent cocked an eyebrow but agreed with her decision, and they started off to the far reaches of town, where the bar was located.

Upon their arrival, Vincent held the door for Lucrecia, saying, "Go on ahead, beautiful."

Lucrecia stopped mid-stride. "Vincent! People might assume things!" but Vincent only grinned heartily.

"What's so bad about that?"

Lucrecia couldn't argue.

They chose a table in the corner where Lucrecia could talk to Vincent without being overheard. She wanted to tell him about her new project, if she could call it that, and keep him updated, but there was only one small flaw with this - all of her work was strictly confidential, and was to be kept between the confines of she, Gast, Hojo, and any aid that might be assisting with a trial or procedure. This was completely illegal, and Shin-Ra could have both their heads for it, but you know how it goes: you've got a secret, so you've gotta tell someone… Knowing she could trust Vincent, she told him everything, every chance she got, and so far as she knew, he had never spoke a word of it to anyone; he had not even brought anything up with Lucrecia herself. They ordered their drinks, just a soda for Lucrecia for now, and a beer for Vincent, and Lucrecia began to speak.

Leaning in close, she said, "Listen, I need to tell you this before I go ahead and do it. Now, regardless, I'm going to do it, I just want to know what you think. Gast had this idea to…" she stopped, as the waitress set down their drinks. Lucrecia thanked her, and started again, "…this idea to create an Ancient child using the cells from JENOVA and a human mother and father, both of whom would be integrated with JENOVA cells before and, in the case of the mother, during the pregnancy."

Vincent frowned severely, but nodded for her to go on.

"We just haven't figured out how to make sure the child will for sure get a JENOVA integrated egg and sperm yet. They may need to be treated individually outside of the womb and then returned to the mother, but…" she stopped, took a breath, and grabbed Vincent's hand, who was stunned at this gesture, "I'm gonna do it, Vince. I'm gonna be the mother." She smiled, so proud.

Vincent did not speak. He only took a sip of his beer, and turned away.

"Vincent?"

He shook his head, "I don't like it, Lucrecia. I don't like it at all. I don't think you should mess with…people. It's too…" He couldn't bring himself to look into her eyes. He didn't want this to happen to her. And he had one burning question. "What about…who's the father?"

It was her turn to look away. "I haven't…really thought about that yet. I mean, what I mean is… I'm still looking."

His lips were thin when he nodded, "Look, Lucy. I know you're going to do this regardless of what I think, but listen to me." This was half the reason he had brought her here today. "You…" he swallowed his pride, and the knot in his throat, "you really mean something to me, Lucrecia. And I don't know if you share those same feelings for me, and if you don't, then you don't. But I think… Look, I'm in love with you. There's no other way for me to say it. And if you think this is something you really want to do, then I can't stop you. I wouldn't dream of ever stopping you from your work. But be careful, okay? If something goes wrong, I couldn't live knowing I could have stopped you from this." He wouldn't let go of her hand. Not until she promised him.

Lucrecia, however, was in a mild state of shock. She wasn't sure what to respond to first, or even how to respond. Did she…was she in love? Was this why she trusted him so much, why she went to lunch with him almost ever day, and dinner? Why she waited for him if he was in a briefing? Was this more than good company? Was that why she watched his lips when he talked, and his eyes when he didn't?

"My god…" she said aloud. "I do love him, don't I?"

Vincent cocked his head, unable to hear the words she muttered under his breath. She turned her face away and said to the wall, "I'm in love with you."

Eyelashes flickering, Vincent looked as though that was about the last thing he had expected to hear. He was prepared for rejection, but not for this. He took a big gulp of his beer, and realized he was still clutching Lucrecia's hand. It would be too awkward to let go now, so he only secured the grip. Lucrecia across the table looked as though she were thinking. Then, without warning, she waved over the nearest waitress and ordered, "A bottle of wine. Whatever you have. In celebration." The waitress smiled and obliged.

"In celebration?" Vincent asked, "Of what?"

"Of my becoming a mother, whether you like it or not, and of my being in love with you, whether I like it or not," all this she said with a smile, but added, "though it all seems so sudden."

"That's the only way to live life, isn't it? Suddenly?" Vincent used his free hand to tip up her chin, making their eyes meet. "But you never promised."

"I promise. I'll be careful. For us."

"For us? Is that what we are now? Already?"

"Well, damn it, you're in love with me, I'm in love with you, why not? Anyway, shouldn't we live life suddenly, Socrates?"

"Funny. Always saw myself as more of a Marcus Aralias." He smiled. "Come closer. I want to try something." Lucrecia bent forward, curious, when Vincent placed a firm kiss on her lips, just as the waitress returned. She smiled warmly, and allowed them to finish the kiss in peace before setting down the bottle and two glasses. Vincent had to thank the woman; Lucrecia was speechless.

"Damn you, Vincent," she murmured as he poured her wine.

"What, was it a bad kiss?" he was sarcastic.

"You know very well it wasn't." Her tone was heavy but her eyes were light.

Vincent raised his glass, "To us."

"To us," she agreed, and they clinked their glasses together.

The pair, or perhaps couple, spent the rest of the afternoon in the bar, getting more than slightly intoxicated on cheap wine, though nothing had ever tasted sweeter. It seemed to them that for once, the heavens had smiled upon them both, and that maybe this was a sign, or maybe it was just that one lucky break that everyone has to get sometime. They were so consumed in what was good and right with the world, they never noticed a familiar, unfriendly face.

Lucrecia had her own apartment not far from Nibelheim, but Vincent, the lowly Turk (or so they were looked upon by other members of the Shin-Ra company, was forced to stay at the inn, which, at the moment, was closer, so Lucrecia resigned to head back with Vincent until she sobered up a bit, not that she was trashed, no. Just drunk enough to be in too much of a good mood to spend it alone. They headed up the steps and turned the bend to where Vincent's small room was, and found the rest of the upstairs unoccupied. After all, who wants to be hulled up in a cheap room on a lovely day?

Sitting on the bed, Lucrecia sighed.

"So, Vincent, uh…tell me about yourself," she said softly.

"Like what?" he asked, sitting beside her.

"Oh, anything. I'm just…curious." She smiled. Curious, yes, and she was sort of scoping him out to see if maybe, just maybe he could father the baby for JENOVA. Gast had said this wasn't about love, but he didn't say she couldn't love. After all, she had known Vincent for a few months and there was clearly nothing wrong with him: he was intelligent, funny, and handsome, not to mention strong and stable… He seemed a perfect choice.

"Well, I dunno."

"Tell me about your parents," she offered, shrugging gently.

Vincent leaned against the headboard, folding his hands across his lap. He flicked his dark hair out of his face. "Alright… My mom, her name was Leila. She was very beautiful. She was tall, and strong, and she had the longest, reddest hair you could ever imagine. She used to sing to me every night until I thought I was too old for that…but she could sing. She could do anything, as far as I was concerned. My father, Vincent (I was named after him) died when I was very young, four, I think, so she was everything to me. Don't get me wrong, I still love my father, and he loved me, and I know he loved my mother very much. I only ever wish I'd never asked Mom to stop singing…" He seemed forlorn for a moment, but then snapped back to reality. "She didn't want me to take this job, said I was too young. Of course, I was only twenty when I applied, so maybe I was. She…uh…she passed away two years ago. Day after my birthday. She said she was proud of me, she said, 'Vincent Constantine Valentino, you have proven yourself as a man. You are more than any mother could ask for,' and then she died. The doctors said it was old age, but I think it was heartbreak. Her husband was gone, I was gone, and she always wanted grandchildren, and I couldn't even give her that. She was only sixty…" He stopped. A tear shimmered in his eye, but he blinked it away, pursing his lips.

Opening her arms to him, Lucrecia mumbled, "Oh, Vince, I'm so sorry. I didn't know." He bent forward, and allowed her to embrace him, laying his head on her breast. The good mood was crushed, but both their hearts were open.

"It's alright. You would have found out somehow," he murmured, looking up at her. Then he buried his face against her shoulder took in a deep, long breath, smelling Lucrecia's hair, its natural perfume, and he sat up. "How about you?"

She laughed, uneasily.

"Dad's a minister, hates what I've done with my life, Mom's a housewife, wishes I would come home and settle down and be a housewife too. My brother doesn't care that I exist, my sister worships me. The end."

Vincent frowned dramatically. "What are they gonna think of this whole JENOVA baby thing?"

"Well, I won't be going to any reunions…"

...Authoress' note: If you like this story so far, please do me a favor and read No Poetic Device - it's a Vincent fanfic as well, and if I may say so myself, it's the best thing I've ever written. I promise you won't be disappointed. It just feels lonely because I spent a great deal of love on it, and it has had zero reviews, and that hurts a little bit, if you know what I'm saying. Thanks for listening to me gripe! More to come soon! Oh, and PS: If you want to know about how far along I am on the next chapter, check my bio - I update that more than my stories, just so people know where I'm at and what's going on. Thanks again!...


	4. Grey pt I

**Chapter IV - Grey ver. 1**

An electrical storm brewed that night, the lightning dancing and splitting the sky like the smoke of a jet illuminated a thousand-fold. It was a beautiful sight. At least, Vincent thought it was an electrical storm…until he heard the thunder.

_I lay me down tonight…_

It started as a small groan, and swelled impatiently, sounding off between the vivid flashes of lightning that lit up the Kalm Inn like daylight. The whole town seemed to flicker like an interstellar camera was taking an overhead picture with a new flashbulb, and the inn was at the center of it. Unfortunately for Vincent, he wasn't at the inn. His back was lying on a grassy hillside about a mile from town, lounging beneath his cape. It wasn't cold; it was pleasant, really, the end of spring, but it was a security mechanism; to sleep without a blanket seemed unsafe to him, even though he was usually not a superstitious man. Yes, he was about to fall asleep, but he was trying to remember. Count the seconds between the lightning and thunder and divide by five. The storm wasn't three miles away, he figured, but the air was still, calm. He might have some time before it actually arrived. The question was, how much? Enough to get into town? To find a room, or covered alley at least? Hell, it was three in the morning - no one would let a ragged vagabond into their home at this hour. Even Vincent himself wouldn't do it. He laughed at the thought as he stood, dusting himself off. A sound like a chisel wedging itself between two rocks cut the air, followed by the sound of a building tumbling to the earth from thousands of feet in the air. It was so loud Vincent could feel the sound waves in his chest. The thunder was closer, and the wind was picking up. He shook out his cape and wrapped it expertly around his shoulders, latching it into place before it even came to a final resting place on his back. Shaking out his raven hair, he began to march.

A gust forced its way through, and it whipped his hair harshly into his eyes, where it pinched and stung. Another flash of lightning, the sinister, electric hair, almost immediately followed by the blast of thunder, a heavy metallic sound this time, in the distance, though in his opinion it wasn't quite distant enough. There would be rain any moment, yes, he could smell it on the wind, and he knew he would never make it to town. Another strike, and Vincent could see clearly before him the round of the hill down which he sloped, the grass slick and white with electricity. He picked up into a run, but paced his steps cautiously.

A drop, and then another. He could just barely hear them, but the sound was unmistakable. Vincent was going to get drenched, and he knew it, but that didn't mean he wasn't damn well gonna try to keep himself dry. But the running was hard - when the first crash of thunder had roared, he had been in the lacy edges of dreams, and there hadn't been hardly a cloud in the sky. By the time he had regained conscious thought, the quarter moon was almost completely obscured by thick wads of heavy grey cotton that threatened to flood the earth and drown him if he didn't get his ass moving. So he got his ass moving. It had all gotten so grey so quickly.

The story of his life.

_…much further down…_

A thick, dangerous lightening strike seemed to fall within the perimeters of Kalm, and then the down went black. Valentine expected to see the lights flash back on after just a moment or two, but apparently Kalm's environment-friendly residents had already switched from mako to coal…or switched back, more likely. The lights remained off. Only a few old mako lamps burned eerily in the streets, remnants of the past, ectoplasm of a dream.

Sleep still weighed heavy on Vincent's shoulders as a single drop became twins, triplets, quadruplets. It was as though someone was poking holes in the clouds one by one. Carefully tromping through the grass, Vincent wondered if it would not be better just to wait here and get some rest, at least until the power came back on, than to continue a laborious jog downhill to Kalm.

"I mean, it's not like it's a -"

Cloudburst.

The rain came down heavy and cold on Vincent's back, making his running even more slowed, feet beginning to stick in the fresh mud. He gave up. He was going to get just as wet walking lazily as he was running, he figured, because he really couldn't get much more wet as it was. The wind picked up again, throwing the rain onto Vincent's bare skin, stinging an making tiny welts rise up. This was a vicious storm. Vicious, yes, and strong, but natural, life-giving all the same, thought Vincent. It was pure, and it was good.

_Swim in the calm tonight._

Lighting blazed across the sky and brought Vincent back to the realization that he was uncomfortably cold and wet, and standing here wasn't making it any better. And in that same flash of light, Kalm looked like a skeleton as he drew nearer to it. Vincent caught a glimpse, too, in that fleeting moment, of something out of the corner of his eye standing as stark on the dismal hill as he himself was, but it was only for a second, and then was gone. In the dark, it seemed once again that the knoll was naked but for his lone figure. Valentine stopped mid stride, and turned in the direction of the object. Because of the JENOVA cells that inhabited his body, his eyes were exceptionally good in the dark, but this blackness seemed solid. Even still, a shadowy shape formed in the void, and he knew he was not alone. He stood, waiting, silent, needed one more strike of lightning. He wondered if the figure was waiting for him, as well.

Was he afraid? No. It's hard to fear for your life when you're not even sure if you're technically alive. He was only afraid that maybe there really was no one there, and the his mind, which he felt he had been losing steadily for thirty-five years, was finally gone, though that didn't scare him too much either. Vincent mostly already functioned in a reality all his own; maybe this would just make things more attractive.

The lightning came. Vincent took a step back. This couldn't be.

_This art does drown._

"Hello, Vincent." The voice was smooth, slick, deep. The smile was unmistakably ill-fated, the poise was one of strength. But something was different about Sephiroth.

"What do you want?' Vincent asked over the roar of thunder and the rain that fell on them both. Sephiroth was dead - dead! And yet…Vincent wondered now if he really had lost his mind, if this wasn't some eerie hallucination brought on by loneliness and desperation.

But Sephiroth remained calm, oblivious. "Nice weather we're having," and he laughed. No, Vincent wasn't crazy, Sephiroth was. Something, though, something wasn't the same. Maybe it was the rain, but Sephiroth seemed a little hunched over, a little worn, and not nearly as…evil…as he once had. No, he appeared to be a crazed human being, and nothing more. Vincent couldn't help but take pity on the forlorn thing, though he had once despised him. Perhaps it was in his eyes that he saw a flash of the baby Lucrecia had born, but he insisted unthinkingly, "Sephiroth. Get out of the rain."

Again, laughter. "What's this? Are you afraid I'll get sick, there, Valentine? You know damn well I won't. You won't and I won't either." He stopped and looked around, stepping a little closer to Vincent, who stood his ground. "Not afraid of me anymore? No…but you never were, were you…" he paused in thought, the smile that lingered on his face was unmistakable in the blackness, the outline of the Cheshire cat lingering on a branch. Lightning struck and Vincent caught a glimpse of a long, thick wound on Sephiroth's forehead.

"Let's get out of the rain," Vincent insisted, and even went so far as to take Sephiroth's hand. His skin was cold and smooth, feeling as dead as Vincent's own, and his hand was thin, boney, all the musculature severely atrophied. Even the tendons seemed weak. As soon as contact was made, Sephiroth seemed to fall from his pedestal and become a weak and frightened creature, almost jerking away from Vincent. But Sephiroth did not object as Vincent began to lead him toward town; indeed, the smile faded from his gaunt face and he slumped and trudged behind the raven-haired man. Truth was, Sephiroth was alone. And he was sick. Not physically, no, but his mind was slowly becoming twisted, not like before, before he had known what was going on…now it was like his mind was becoming something all its own, and Sephiroth couldn't control it. He was scared. Scared of himself.

The power came back on just moments after the innkeeper finally decided it would be alright to let the two men stay out the rest of the night, being how it was raining, and he had no business anyway. Vincent trekked up the hard wood steps, metal boots making heavy sounds on the floor, Sephiroth's clunking behind. Both men kept their faces to the ground, for two very different reasons.

Vincent lay claim to the bed nearest the window, and Sephiroth huddled up in the other after stripping off layer after layer of soggy clothes. Once down to his underwear, Vincent lay calmly on the bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for Sephiroth to make the first move. The younger man, however, only seemed to hide beneath the bed sheets, his eyes turned toward Vincent, his face away.

The rain on the window seemed to whine against the glass, as though disappointed that it couldn't find a way in.

_All insects sing tonight,_

Sephiroth made no sound, but only alternately watched Vincent, and watched the rain fall. And Valentine was too tired to care. He swung his feet languidly out of bed and made for the light switch, which was nearest the door and nearer to Sephiroth. His fingers were only inches away when Sephiroth shouted, "No, don't!" Vincent paused where he was and lowered his arm, "Just…please. Don't. Leave the light on."

A strange request from such a man, Vincent thought, strange enough to observe. Sephiroth's eyes met Valentine's. And Vincent saw his fear. Again, too, he saw the gash on Sephiroth's head. Instinctively, he reached out to touch it. Sephiroth slowly backed away, not out of fear, but marvel. What did Vincent care for a cut on his forehead? Hell, what did Vincent care for him standing in the rain? But this room was nice, especially after having hid out in the basement of the same building for a few weeks. It had been dark down there, but for one lone exposed light bulb…He shuddered and backed away further.

"What is it?" Vincent asked.

"Just don't turn it out."

After a hesitation, Vincent sat down next to Sephiroth. He refused to look away from those aqua eyes, until…until what? Until Sephiroth divulged his deepest darkest secrets to Vincent? He was being stupid. Five years ago, this man could have crushed Vincent beneath his palm like an insect. And now he was broken and battered, but he was still the same man. He was still the horrible creature who had brought pain and suffering to the planet, and whether he was possessed by some horrible spirit or genome or whatever, Vincent didn't care. This man had killed, killed with his bare hands -

And so had he, God damn it. He had been a Turk. At least Sephiroth had killed for what he believed in. Vincent had killed for a steady paycheck. He still hated himself for that, and he supposed he always would. It was hard to hate someone so disillusioned as Sephiroth after something like that, but nevertheless. This man, this monster, had been horrible. Had done more damage than anyone else ever could have, and the reasons, why the reasons seemed beside the point. Yet, Vincent couldn't help but think, what's done is done, both for this man, and for yourself. Nothing you do or say or think will ever change that. You may not ever be able to completely forgive either one of you, but there's no point in letting run your life.

"But then, what else is there?" Vincent said allowed, before realizing he was talking to himself. Sephiroth eyed him up for a moment and said, "What else is there, other than what?"

"Other than hate, other than guilt…" the elder said and rubbed his face in his hands, then through his hair, "I don't know about you, but I've got nothing else left."

"What about fear? And love?"

_the coldest sound._

From the mouth of this man, the words seemed both scripture and blasphemy. No, no fear, Vincent understood that, but love, love… Vincent still loved Lucrecia didn't he? Even after all of these years, after all of this hurt, after all of this solitude? How could he not? What had she ever done? She had never…no, but she had betrayed him. And for what? For Hojo, for work? But that was one thing he could forgive, even if he didn't understand it after thirty-five years. He didn't know why, but he could forgive what she had done, because he knew that she had loved him. No matter what, she had loved him. 'Tis better to have loved and lost…but was it really?

"What about you, Sephiroth? Do you fear? Do you love?"

He seemed to think for a moment, the silver-haired one, and he turned away from Vincent as though to study the wall, and when he turned back, he did not quite answer, except to say, "Well, don't you?"

"Fear, no, I don't fear. I've no reason to. I can't die, and I wouldn't miss this life if I could. I would miss…I would miss her, but I already do, because yes, I love her. I do. So love, yes, but fear, I see no reason." He nodded, as though explaining it to himself for the first time.

"How can you…do you…Do you still love yourself? Because I can fear, and I do fear. I fear almost everything these days. Everything reminds me of something else, something taken away from me, something that might bring back the pain that I felt, and the lies…but I cannot love, because I don't know what love is. I don't think I've ever known it." He seemed so helpless, sitting there, saying just what he felt as he hid beneath the blankets looking up at Valentine and not down, not this time. His hair wasn't silver; it was grey. His eyes didn't glow quite the way they used to: with power and with confidence, but the mako could never be taken away, the JENOVA neither. He had a ghastly pallor to him, not the pallor of mystery, but the pallor of illness. Vincent knew though, that Sephiroth, like himself, would never even experience a cold, but there are other sicknesses. Sickness of the mind, and of the spirit, and of the heart. And Sephiroth felt all three. Sometimes those can do more to a person than any physical manifestation of an illness ever could. Just look at Vincent. Just look at Lucrecia.

"You never loved JENOVA?" the words were soft.

"I was obsessed. I never got to feel love." His words cut straight through Vincent. "Maybe once, maybe before I knew what she really was, when I really thought she was my mother…but I never knew her and together loved her. I knew her and was possessed by the very notion of her. My birth mother…you loved her, didn't you?"

"Lucrecia…" he whispered into the night. "Yes. I loved her. I love her still. I think I forever will."

"How?"

"I don't know. Maybe that's why I'm so sure. If there was nothing left in this world that I loved, and I'm fairly sure there isn't, I would still love her."

"But how can you love her if you can't love yourself?"

"What?" Vincent was dismayed by the question. Sephiroth, however, did not yield. He pulled back the blankets and lay his hand on Vincent's shoulder.

"I may seem like a child to you, now, Vincent, but I've been through more than you know. And if I've learned one thing, it's this - you cannot claim to bestow love on something else if you cannot love yourself. It's impossible. Much like knowing yourself. How can you claim to embrace the deepest depths of someone if you don't even know the first degree of who you really are? That's why I don't love. I can't even try. I can't even know what it's like because I hate who I am, who I was, and I fear what I may become, if anything at all. I wouldn't know love if it killed me. And neither would you." His conviction was strong, and he engaged Valentine in a stare down until he finally spoke.

"You're wrong," Vincent said, "I've always loved her." He backed away from Sephiroth.

"You're obsessed, just like I was. She occupies your every thought. You're nothing without her. That's not love. That's mania. That's neurotic. You and I have that in common. We allow women to possess us, and we think it makes us strong. But look at you, Vincent, look at me. Are we strong?"

Vincent stood, stepping away, and Sephiroth dared to follow, fierce as he had ever been.

_I'd send God's grace tonight - _

"Answer me, Vincent, are we strong!"

Vincent was overwhelmed. Everything Sephiroth said - was it making sense? It was making sense! But no, no, that couldn't be! He didn't have to love himself to be in love, he didn't have to be strong anymore! Oh, God, what were these lies? Was this madness? Was Sephiroth mad? Was he?

Vincent was against a wall now, both physically and metaphorically, but Sephiroth would not let up, "Yes, yes, I hate, and I feel guilt. And I feel these things toward myself, and towards the world, because I know them. But I cannot have empathy for something I do not feel. No one can. We are weak men, Valentine, weak to the point of breaking. I know you feel it, I see it in your eyes - they are the same as mine. You talk of sinning - is this not a sin? A lie?"

"Oh, God, God…"

_could it be found._

Sephiroth finally began to retreat. "Don't betray yourself, Vincent Valentine, and especially do not betray her. If you think you love her so much, you'll know that she deserves better than deception. But you are lost to her if you cannot love her. You can love nothing. You and I, we are alone." With tears in his eyes, Sephiroth sat. "Together, we are alone."


	5. Murder pt I

**Chapter V - Murder pt. I**

_Hey, Miss Murder can I…_

"JENOVA is a wonderful thing," he'd said before he died. "It infests the body like a cancer, always metastasizing, always growing, changing, seeping into any part - every part of the organism that hosts it. It becomes the organism, and protects itself, and through it, the host. JENOVA enhances life, raises it's keeper up, and gives it effective immortality. Effective, we say, because we don't know how long it will last, or to what extremes, but we do know this - you can separate as many JENOVA cells from the original organism, which is to say, JENOVA herself, and not only will JENOVA reproduce those very same cells to complete herself, but the tissue removed will also continue to live." He laughed. "You could probably cut off her head… But I digress. As long as the cells have a food source, they will not die. They do not age, they do not fall ill. And when sustenance is removed, the cells, as the organism herself, will enter a sort of suspended animation. Death, is seems, is a miracle far removed from this being, this Ancient."

Hojo was in love with JENOVA. He wanted her for his own.

_make beauty stay if I_

For many years, he had loved her beauty, her seeming grace, her absolute power. And when his mind slipped into its deepest depths of madness, he fell in love with her headless form. Though he already had her cells in him, he decided it was not enough - he was getting old, getting sick, and he didn't know how, why. If his research was correct, then the cells should have replicated inside him exponentially. Maybe he just need a boost, needed more of her. After all, they had infused Sephiroth with JENOVA cells almost daily from the time he was sixteen until he made that fateful trip to Nibelheim, and he had been born with JENOVA tissue in him; you couldn't convince Hojo that all that extra work hadn't made a difference. Sephiroth was the best of the best, no thanks to anyone but Hojo.

"Born with my cells," Hojo thought greedily, almost erotically as he fingered the glass syringe that held a fresh helping of JENOVA tissue. A tourniquet was around his right forearm, made of rubber and tied tightly by means of his teeth. White lab coat sleeve rolled up formed a ball just below his shoulder, and the crook of his arm was exposed and quivering with anticipation. He was sweating, grinning, gritting his teeth like a heroin addict awaiting a dose after too long a time; excited like a groom on his wedding night. This was Hojo's wedding night, or at least a renewal of vows; they were becoming one again, he and JENOVA. The cold steel needle slid easily into pale oily skin - JENOVA slipped through the steel with the drop of a plunger, foreign matter flooded his veins for the first time in thirty years. It felt like power, but there was pain. There was always pain. But had it always been this bad?

Hojo's eyes squeezed shut and he pulled off the tourniquet, but the pain only grew worse. Tears dampened his cheeks and he bit his lower lip hard, trying to cope, and he felt blood begin to spill. Oh, God, JENOVA, why are you doing this to me? His muscles tensed, relaxed, tensed: he was seizing, but he was aware, even as his body dropped limply from the chair to the floor and stiffened again. Had it been like this the first time? Would he ever have continued if it had? Was he just too old? Christ, he was in his sixties - twice the age he had been in the early stages of the project!

Oh, but the pain subsided and was immediately replaced with something like a quickening orgasm of the brain. The quaking in his muscles ceased. His breathing quieted. He smiled. The only remnants of his attack were rivulets of blood that drizzled down his chin from his bloodied lip, a lip which had already begun to heal as JENOVA rushed to it's rescue. Hojo lay on the floor on his back, perceiving the world in a brighter sense. Everything seemed opened up to him again. He was prepared.

"I'll help you, my son…" he whispered into nothingness, as he pulled himself easily from the floor, despite his arthritic knees, his hunching back. "I'm ready for you."

_take my life…?_

There is a gravestone in Midgar Memorial Cemetery for one Tavarius Hojo. It sits at the bottom of a hill, beneath an elm tree. It is a simple grey thing with naught but a name and dates. There is no eulogy, no final words. It's hardly begun to erode, but slowly the mosses and lichen claim it, but this grave's been lucky. The fact that it even exists is a testament to that. After METEOR fell, a small group of public service workers were sent to burry the dead that could be found after the terrible destruction of the better part of Midgar. The body of Tavarius Hojo was not discovered; however, public record of his presence at Shin-Ra Headquarters on the night in question was. It was assumed that it was either completely obliterated by METEOR, as many others were, or was so mangled among the rest as to render it unidentifiable.

The grave of Tavarius Hojo remains empty.

His body was never found.

JENOVA smiles.


	6. Murder pt II

**Chapter VI - Murder pt. 2**

_With just a look, they shook_

Even when he was born, Sephiroth had remarkable eyes. Not yet bound or unbound by mako, his eyes were like glass lit by a candle, and were the most severe aqua one could imagine, like clear, warm island waters. Maybe it was JENOVA, or perhaps he was just beautiful. He was a long, thin creature of a thing, and he didn't cry at all, which at first was troubling, but was later a godsend. He was special, perfect.

The room was unlike any other delivery room - the lights were dim, for they didn't know how fresh JENOVA cells would react to bright light. Under the focus of a microscope, the tissue had seemed to contract, to quiver, and no one wanted to harm the new born. Everything was hushed and quite, but for necessary medical babble which seemed to linger in the air like smoke. Even Lucrecia's birth pangs were quiet, though the birth was by no means easy on her. Pain was evident in the palms of her hands, where fingernails had bit so hard she'd bled. No one was there to hold her hand, to tell her to breath, for both Gast and Hojo were presiding the birth, which had turned into a surgery: the baby was turned the wrong way, and a Cesarean section was needed. The baby's legs were so long, damage could be incurred easily. There was blood everywhere.

"How is it; how is he?" Lucrecia gasped. She tried to look down into her own womb where the doctors were extracting the not-yet-newborn, but some one pushed her head back and murmured, "Just a minute."

"I want to see him," Lucrecia panted and heaved. She had not been sedated, only numbed, in case something went wrong and she couldn't be roused from a medical sleep. There was pain, so much pain, but she couldn't be bothered with that right now. She needed to see her baby, to know it was alright after nine months of horror. "Is something wrong?"

A snip. The cord was cut and the baby was lifted out of the mother, followed by placenta. The child was taken away and a small team assembled to close the gaping mouth in Lucrecia's belly. Gast went to her side.

"He needs a name, Lucrecia, a name," he said quickly, wiping the hair off of Lucrecia's sweaty brow.

"Sephiroth. Sephiroth Gabriel Valentino," she sputtered, not bothering to explain. "Let me see my son!" It would have been a scream, but her voice was raw from heated breathing.

"Don't worry, Lucy, he's beautiful, he's perfect," Gast assured her as he wrote down the child's name. He paused. "Valen -"

"Don't tell Hojo," she demanded, "you can't tell Hojo. I don't care if he finds out, I just don't want to be around when he does."

"Lucrecia," Gast whispered through gritted teeth, "do you know what this could mean for the project? The wrong father? What about JENOVA? What about the -"

"God damn it, to hell with the project! Do you think I care? This isn't the project I signed up for! Mako injections? A super-SOLDIER? I don't know how Hojo talked you into that one, but you're going to kill my child! This isn't what I meant to do!" She began to sob. "I want to see my son!"

"Lucy -"

"Vincent was right. This isn't good, this isn't clean. This is evil. Nothing good will ever come of such intentions. I am damned, you and Hojo are damned, and my child, my baby was damned before he took his first breath because of us. We are not God, we are evil!" The dim lights made her thin face look severe, and she was. She began to cry, and something new dripped into her arm, and then she was silent. Thorazine.

"Gast - Professor -" someone called from the adjoining room where the infant was held. "You need to see this." Jeremiah grabbed Lucrecia's limp hand, then let her go, rushing to the room. What he found shocked him. Even with JENOVA living in the child, he would have never expected this.

Sephiroth Gabriel Valentino, only fifteen minutes old, was lying softly in blankets, looking around, and smiling.

_and heavens bowed before him. _

_Simply a look can break your heart._

"Seph, come here, time for your shot," called Miri, a nurse. She stood in a child's examination room, a needle and phial of a glowing compressed gas laid before her. She was small, pale, and very sweet. Her brown eyes were happy and soft, and blond hair curled around pierced ears. Her uniform was staunch, white, and set her apart from the colorful drawings and papers that adorned the walls in the room. It didn't seem right for the child - he never seemed to need colorful distractions to make him happy. He just sort of accepted everything, and Miri was glad for that.

She had watched him grow for two years, now, and he was getting so smart and so tall. At just five years of age, he was almost as many feet tall, about four-two or so. He was thin and limber and strong, and he loved to read and sing and laugh. The swing set was his favorite toy. When Miri pushed him, he told her gently he could do it himself, and that one day he wouldn't even need the swing. It made her laugh.

Sephiroth walked in slowly, notebook in one hand, pen in the other. "I'm ready." He hopped into the chair and rolled up his sleeve, the little trooper that he was. Miri ruffled his long silver hair. It had gotten a little darker since she'd first met him, going from about the shade of a new shiny coin to a more metallic silver. And it was so long…

"When are you gonna get this cut, kiddo?" He shrugged. It didn't seem to concern him much. Every once in a while, Gast or Hojo would insist that it was too long; Hojo said it made the boy seem feminine, Gast just said it was annoying, and she would take him for a hair cut. They had made no pleas of yet, and it didn't seem to bother the child, so she just left him be. Wiping his arm with an alcohol pad, Miri loaded the syringe. When she pressed the plunger to make sure there were no air bubbles in the tip, the mako spewed out and vaporized almost instantly.

"What're you writing, Seph?" she asked to distract him, though he didn't need it at all, but he humored her by answering as she pushed the needle in, "I dunno. Just stuff I think about. Especially like this now, when I get this stuff in me. It makes me think weird stuff."

Miri stopped with the needle in his arm. "What am I doing?" was her though.

"Mir, is something wrong?" the boy asked sympathetically.

"What…what does it make you think about?"

"Don't really remember. S'why I got this," and he raised the notebook. "Um…Miri…can you…" with his left hand, he pointed at the needle in his right arm, "…It's kinda hurting."

"Y-yeah." Miri sighed and pushed the mako into his muscle tissue. Sephiroth shuddered, but didn't cry, didn't even object. She removed the hypodermic from his arm and patted him on the head. She put a little band aid on the pinprick wound and he slid off of the chair, carrying about his merry way.

"What are they doing to this child?" she put her face in her hands. Such innocence. Such beauty. So intelligent. So…ruined.

_The stars that piece the sky, he left them all behind. We're left to wonder why…_

Hojo clutched the infant to his chest. He was actually smiling at it. His experiment was successful thus far. It had lived, and was thriving. The baby cooed, fidgeted, and a strand of glossy white hair fell into his beaming face. Tavarius pushed it away. The baby reached out for the pale hand that adjusted him and grabbed Hojo's pointer finger. Sephiroth put it in his mouth, face glowing with joy. Hojo chortled at the infants pride. Sephiroth, in blue footie pajamas, began to kick and squirm, signaling he wanted to be put down. Tavarius placed him cautiously in his playpen and presented him with a pacifier. Sephiroth, at six months old, liked to chew. Everything. Pens, paper, plastic, people - anything he could get his gums on, even his own hair, which grew unbelievably fast.

In the beginning, there had been concern that, because of the hyper-developmental rate of the JENOVA tissue that not only inhabited but seemed to make up most of this tiny body, Sephiroth would too develop too quickly, causing a premature death. Born with striking white hair and pale skin and eyes, it seemed that perhaps the pigment cells, the first to die in adult humans, had already shut down. The doctors kept a constant vigil, and watched for any further signs. But his skin did not grow thin and his eyes did not fade, only remained aqua. Perhaps he would have been born pale without any interference. Other than smiling and recognizing faces at birth, a quantum leap in mental growth, everything else seemed normal. He demonstrated all natural reflexes, could lift his head after a few weeks, which was sooner than normal but not unheard of, and loved to be touched and sung to. What was amazing was his comprehension. At this age, he had not said a word, but could already grasp basic concepts: up, down, food, more, stop, and peek-a-boo was no longer a thrill.

Language seemed to be coming along, and all of the team members who had been in anyway involved with the project were curious to see what the boy's first word would be. Probably not papa or mama, since Hojo hadn't been counting himself as the father figure, and Lucrecia had vanished the night Sephiroth was born. No one had seen hide nor hair of her since. When Hojo and Gast considered this, seeing as one day, he would expect a mother, they decided to tell him that "Jenova" was his mother; a safer bet than Lucrecia ever coming back, Gast figured after what she had said to him on the evening of August the sixteenth.

Their main concern, however, was that though Sephiroth's senses were clearly developing well into the preoperational stage, he had never once cried on account of pain, and hardly ever cried otherwise. The nurses in their infinite wisdom declared him "well-adjusted", but Gast feared the worst. The boy could have been born with a degeneration of the nerves, or more likely, his brain was flawed in some way so that he could not feel pain. If either of the two were true, then Sephiroth's baby teeth and fingernails would probably have to be surgically removed until he was old enough to understand that just because it wasn't painful didn't mean he wasn't hurting himself. Children with these sorts of conditions have been known to bite of lips, tongues, fingers, and scratch out eyes and skin and hair because they never knew pain.

Today, Tavarius and Jeremiah were going to test Sephiroth's pain response. Either he had little or none, or in five minutes he was going to be one unhappy baby.

Gast was sterilizing a small device that looked much like a metal comb, except that each tooth was sharpened to a fine point. It was a device meant to inflict pain. Hojo made a few notes and lifted Sephiroth from his playpen, taking the pacifier from his mouth. The baby grabbed for it, moaned, but once it had been taken from his tiny reach, he seemed to resign himself to the fact that he couldn't get it back and settled himself in the crook of Hojo's arm. He took a fistful of Hojo's lab coat and stuffed it into his mouth. Tavarius rolled his eyes over-dramatically, but he let Sephiroth drool on his robe; it was alright, the garment was clean.

Gast reached for the infant and when he saw the professor's face, Sephiroth reached back, little fists clenching and unclenching. Jeremiah picked him up from Hojo's arms and the boy immediately grabbed Gast's goatee, pulling hairs and laughing. Gast yanked away and almost shouted. Hojo laughed.

"Little sadist," Gast muttered, but he grinned and placed a small kiss on Sephiroth's forehead; the boy laughed as the professor's facial hair tickled his little eyebrows.

"C'mere, Sephie," and Jeremiah lay the baby belly down on a cold, paper-covered table. Sephiroth beat his tiny fists and wanted to crawl away, but both men insisted "stop". The infant seemed to play dead but for subtle breaths. Gast unzipped the back of the pajamas and, taking the comb device, pressed it along the length of Sephiroth's spine, very gently at first, then a little harder. Hojo watched the boy's face as it contorted into an infantile conveyance of disbelief, then shock and fear, and finally, as the comb punctured skin, Sephiroth began to wail madly, fat tears rolling down soft cheeks.

Gast nodded, cleaned and bandaged the nearly microscopic punctures, and Hojo picked him up and rocked him, whispering that it was alright, it was all over. Soon the child was asleep.

"He seems to have a slight tolerance to pain, but he definitely felt that…" Gast murmured and seemed to jot the same thing down in a small journal. Almost hesitantly, he whispered, "He could be autistic."

"No," Hojo countered almost defensively, "he's too aware for that. He understands too much. He's trying to walk and he can barely stand, and he knows us, he knows people." He rocked the sleeping child.

"He could be functional - no one would have ever noticed if he wasn't brought up in this situation."

"He's not autistic. It's JENOVA. I know it."

"Alright, Hojo. Alright."

Over the next few months, Sephiroth's eyes developed a strange quality: in dim lights or darkness, the boy's pupils would dilate and appear almost normal, but when under particularly bright lights, like fluorescence or the sun, the pupils would contract not into small circles, but became elliptical, like a cat's. With his seeming lack of melanin, he was quite photosensitive. Because of this, Gast and Hojo, along with the nurses, only took him outside after dusk. After all, everyone needs fresh air, even if they are only babies playing in a courtyard at twilight.

One night, just a month or so before Sephiroth's first birthday, Gast brought him outside quite late. The sky was crisp and clear, but in the glare from the lights of Shin-Ra headquarters, where the team had moved only recently, it seemed starless. The moon was just beginning it's cycle and was currently dark, so the entirety of the sky seemed to be one solid mass covering the earth, keeping it safe. It was a strange feeling, Gast though, to look up into an empty sky. Sephiroth seemed as puzzled as his doctor, wide eyes scanning the heavens.

On a whim, the child lifted an arm and pointed at the void. "Moon?" he asked.

Jeremiah was taken aback. It was the infant's first spoken word, and it was no fluke, for soon he repeated, "Moon?" and a baffled yet pleased Professor Gast answered, "No, Sephie. There's no moon tonight."

Sephiroth lowered his arm and pouted for a moment, then accepted, "Mm. No moon." Jeremiah smiled broadly and handed him a sippy cup which Sephiroth had only recently learned to use after defiantly pulling the lids from all of his bottles with his mouth. The baby quieted himself and was contented with juice.

Gast sighed. "Someday, Sephiroth Gabriel Valentino, someday you'll reach up to that sky and the stars will fall to greet you."

_…he left us all behind._

...Authoress' note: Well, I guess you've all figured out Lucrecia's deep, dark secret+gasp+ No, this is not the end of this story line, either. +laugh+ I could write about it forever. I just wanted to take a moment to say that I work a whole bunch this week so chapters might not come as frequently as they've been coming. Oh, no, I'm not taking a break from writing, I'm just going to have less time to write. But there is one plus side - less time to write equals more time to think. Oh, and happy fourth, all. I hope you blew something up...


	7. The Mother in Me pt II

**Chapter VII - The Mother in Me pt. II**

Lucrecia was surprised when she finally checked the time; far more had passed than for which she had planned. Rising from the bed, she declared adamantly that she had to leave, which wasn't entirely the case; curiosity was pulling at her and she wanted to know whether or not Gast had been working at all during the day. She had left at noon, and her superior often continued into the wee hours of the night, so her hopes were not unfounded, just highly implausible.

"Just stay here, Luce, I'll take you home in a bit," Vincent was practically pleading with her and had her hand grasped tightly, loving the way it felt: small and fragile and soft. He knew his skin was rough and worn, but Lucrecia didn't seem to mind. However, her insistence did not waver.

"I have to get back, Vincent, Jer…Gast will be waiting for me," which was a lie; she was waiting for Gast, but she didn't care. She found no harm in hope.

Vincent walked her down the stairs and to the door of the in and was about to force her to let him walk her home, when Lucrecia, almost reading his mind, declared that she could find her own way, independence foraging a hole and finding a home in her heart. He tried to sway her with kisses, but was denied, and she left him with a small peck on the cheek and nothing more. She closed the door on him as she exited. Behind it, Vincent frowned, and then smiled.

_But I keep it deep inside myself_

Lucrecia was not twenty paces from the door when she realized she was being followed. However, she kept her speed instead of calling out to her stalker, waiting to get to an open area where he could not hide. She reached the center circle of town, where she whipped around, and found him out.

"Hojo," she said with what should have been a sigh of relief, "you could have said hello."

He didn't respond to this, only slicked back his greasy black hair with the palm of his hand and said, "Lucrecia, I heard about your plans for the project. I just wanted to tell you I think what you're doing is amazing. Beautiful, even." He took a few slow steps toward her, a smile on his lips but not in his eyes. The sun was behind him, making his form a dark and unwilling shadow, more menacing than the professor with the Coke-bottle glasses should have been. Lucrecia was unsure of whether to blush or step away, so she did a little of both.

"Gast…told you already?"

"Something like that." He had been listening in on them from the crypt just outside the office walls. Sound carried through that earth like over a telephone line.

"Has he made any progress? Are we any closer?" Her eagerness for knowledge combined with a childish curiosity overruled the eerie vibes that simply looking at the professor seemed to give her.

"I can't say for sure. Here," he offered her his arm, which she reluctantly accepted, "let's walk back to the mansion." It wasn't much further, Lucrecia thought, cringing, where was the real harm?

"I also want to say I'm personally very proud of you, Lucrecia. Without you, this project could have reached a stalemate long ago." His smile revealed teeth, kept disturbingly white in comparison to the rest of his seeming lack of hygiene. He pulled her closer, reaching out for her hands. "I want to thank you."

"Tavarius," Lucrecia murmured, stopping just short of the mansion gates with him, "have you been drinking?" Indeed, alcohol was present on his breath; she hadn't been able to smell it until he had drawn her into his embrace. His grip on her tightened.

"And you haven't? With that Vincent Valentine? That Turk?" The smile morphed into an angered sneer.

"Why…were you following us?" Lucrecia tried to jerk away, and suddenly she was wishing she had let Vincent walk her home.

"Why were you with him?" Hojo demanded.

"He's a friend!"

"He's a murderer!"

"It's his job! To protect us! To protect the project!"

"I don't want you getting hurt," Hojo hissed, "and risk ending the project."

"Thank you for your concern," said a cool, deep voice from behind, "but I assure you, she'll be quite safe with me." Vincent Valentine stood immediate behind Hojo, not five feet away, with his pistol pointed at the base of the professor's skull. His blue eyes flashed with severity. "For your protection," he oozed sarcastically, and Hojo released Lucrecia, who drew close to the Turk.

"Certainly, Valentine. You'd better watch where you point that thing; I could have your job." He was very self-assured in his drunkenness. He smoothed his rumpled lab coat and entered the mansion.

"Would you have shot him?" Lucrecia asked, one Hojo was out of ear shot. The sun's rays were falling from the sky, bringing her heart rate down with them.

"Luce. It's not even loaded." He shoved the cold weapon back into his hip holster. "You know me better than that."

She let go a small smile, "I suppose I do."

Vincent amended himself, "But that isn't to say that I wouldn't defend you, protect you, if you really were in danger. I would go to the ends of the earth to know you were safe, today, tomorrow, or yesterday. But that Hojo's just a sod. He just needs an ass-kicking, I'd say." He suffered his hands in his pockets and shifted his weigh from one foot to the other. The gesture reminded Lucrecia of some lawyer hit man cowboy, with that blue suit and that pistol. She laughed.

_it's within me._

Lucrecia left Vincent behind at the gates of Shin-Ra Mansion; he was now convinced that she was safe. Though Hojo was there, a few SOLDIERs lingered, not to mention Jeremiah Gast, who regarded Lucrecia as though she were his own daughter, for he had no children, though he longed for them.

In the depths of the cellar, Gast reported no headway, and, tugging on his graying goatee and eyeing a microscope which seemed to have malfunctioned, he demanded that Lucrecia have more patience. She left the ramshackle place and headed for her very own apartment, which she was only lucky enough to possess because when she had first arrived in Nibelheim, the mansion had been occupied by SOLDIERs and technicians galore who were working on the reactor. Most of them were gone now, but relocating all of her files, equipment, and not to mention personal effects to stay in a place that could have birthed all dust everywhere seemed a bit impractical to Lucrecia. Staying where she was comfortable and paying a modest rent seemed more prudent, if selfish.

When she walked this time, she really was alone.

The last sparkle of sunlight was bleeding out of the sky when Lucrecia sat on her small but soft bed, gazing contentedly out the window. She sipped a cup of weak coffee and a smile lingered on her face. She lay a hand on her belly, slender for now; soon it would been swollen with life. Lucrecia had always wanted to be a mother, but when she moved on to graduate school what with the aim of acquiring her doctorate, she knew she would have little time for herself, let alone a husband and child. But now the child was her work; the husband was not needed. She thought of Vincent's smooth and smiling face, though, and wondered whether or not one had found her anyway. There was no doubt in her mind that he would be a good father, no matter with whom he bore children. She knew that from his unrestricted personality, his devotion to himself, to his work, to all of his endeavors, and the warmth she felt when his dark eyes lighted on hers. Sure, they hadn't even been "together" yet a day, but she knew him, and she trusted him from the very first moment he had introduced himself to her. Lucrecia was enchanted, and for a little while, all was right with the world.

...o...

"Lucrecia, we're ready for you," Hojo called her into the library in the basement where a portable and simple lab had been assembled. She was about to receive her first JENOVA infusion. Entering the room, her joy was irrepressible. She was more than ready for the pain she was about to endure.

Glimmering in Tavarius' hand was a syringe, the barrel of which was an inch long, a half of an inch thick, and was adorned with a needle that was no less than a fourth of a foot, whose width she'd hoped would have been smaller. Contained within it was an emerald green jelly which writhed and shimmered under the dull mako lamps. Lucrecia was going to have JENOVA stem cells injected directly into her spinal cord, just above her pelvic bones.

Gast stood in the corner, brown eyes drinking in the scene. He was in his glory as much as Lucrecia. In his fifties, it was a day like this he had been waiting for all his life. Now he could only hope and pray that it made him famous, and not infamous, and did some good in this world. "You know what to do," he said to both Lucrecia and Tavarius. He would only preside over the procedure, but his job was no walk through the tulips. He was the one more directly concerned with Lucrecia's well being. It seemed simple enough, but if at any point, for any reason, Hojo missed his mark, or wriggled the need just a bit too far inside her spine, or removed it at the wrong angle, Lucrecia risked paraplegia or other spinal cord injury. And for all the testing and preparing the three had done together over the past three and one-half weeks, they still really had no conception of what the tissue would do once allowed to replicate inside a living human host. Rats and cadavers could only tell you so much. Indeed, the crypt just down the hall had been repeatedly raided for both. But Lucrecia insisted that she was willing: she had signed waver after waver and had spoken with Shin-Ra's top lawyers to unsure that there would be no wrongful death suit should the unthinkable occur. Shin-Ra had gotten plenty of those from mothers who wanted their sons back.

Bending awkwardly over a big, oak desk, Lucrecia unfastened her jeans and pulled them down a few inches, hiking her sweater around her ribs. He lab coat hung on a chair. Hojo, cradling the needle in the gloved fingers of his left hand, wiped her back with an alcohol pad in his right. They had decided against numbing the skin; during testing, any anesthetic had seemed to put the JENOVA cells into a sort of drugged paralysis.

"Ready?" Hojo asked her smoothly, calmly, hoping his voice would have the same effect on her.

Lucrecia took a deep breath. "As I'll ever be." Though she had forgiven Tavarius for his unwanted advances, she couldn't help but wish she could see what he was doing.

"Just try to relax. Think about how long you've waited for this," he reminded her, as though she needed it. All three were silent as the tip of the needle tickled Lucrecia's skin, then with a remarkably steady hand, Hojo pushed it at an almost ninety degree angle up into her spine. It required a great and cautious strength, but Tavarius possessed that - he was an excellent doctor. Soon the entirety of the needle was hidden beneath Lucrecia's flesh. She bit her lip to keep from screaming, from trembling, from collapsing.

"Here goes," he warned her in a low voice before depressing the plunger. The pain flooded Lucrecia's body and she froze as the sensation grew ever more intense. Her vision blurred, but did not grow dark, no; instead her mind was flooded with a great white abyss, purer and brighter than anything she had ever imagined before.

Then, a flash. The pain was gone. Thousands of stars danced around her. It felt…it almost felt as though she was moving at some great speed, but she seemed to recall that she was being bend over a desk, holding perfectly still, for dear life at that. JENOVA's face looked into Lucrecia's, and at her JENOVA smiled, nodded, and then was gone.

Lucrecia stared at the grain in the wood of the desk. Someone was calling her name. Behind her, Hojo had removed the needle from her back successfully. Nevertheless, it was coated with a delicate sheen of blood and spinal fluid, a small rivulet of which was running down her back. Hojo was too taken aback to wipe it away, to bandage the puncture, at least until she would respond to Gast's calls.

"Lucrecia Mae! Can you hear me? Are you alright?" His eyes tried to focus on hers, but hers would not focus.

"…Yessssss…" Though Jeremiah understood it as such, it was not an answer to his pleas, but a vocal emission of her ecstasy. The pain, which should have lingered and become ever more excruciating, was entirely absent. She made no effort to move, either; where and how she stood now were plenty fine with her.

Gast was evermore concerned, "Listen to my voice, child. What is your name?"

"…Lucrecia Mae Winthrop."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-nine."

"Where are you?"

"In the basement…Shin-Ra Mansion, in Nibelheim."

"What day of the week is it?"

"…I bet you can't tell me that."

Hojo laughed at her sudden outburst as he cleaned the needle. He answered for them both: "It's Wednesday. November third, if you can believe it."

Jeremiah checked his watch, "My God, it is, isn't it. Quarter past noon. Damn it. Damn it to Hell. Hojo, you record this - I'm supposed to be at HQ in an hour," he blinked furiously and skittered away, seeming confused. The first and third Wednesday of every month, Jeremiah Gast was required to report to Midgar to say his piece in front of a board of Shin-Ra's directors, including the president himself, and beg for funds. He was often late, and today would be no different except in that he had a feeling he would no longer have to beg.

Three seconds after he had left, however, he stuck his head back into the door and addressed Lucrecia saying, "Oh, and have you decided on a father for the child, yet?"

She wanted to respond, was dying to say Vincent's name, but she couldn't. Something was blocking the road between her sensible brain and her mouth, and all that came out was a sort of weak swallowed giggle.

"…Some other time then, perhaps," said he nervously and whisked himself away for the last time.

Tavarius placed the syringe on the desk before Lucrecia. She hardly seemed to acknowledge its presence. "You know," he said, eyeing Lucrecia's exposed, bloody back, which he then proceeded to clean slowly, "I've been thinking about that, too." As he bandaged he needle mark gently, his tongue passed between his lips to moisten them. "You'll need somebody with a clean bill of health, not to mention someone who's genetic background you can trace." The hands that had bandaged her now lingered on her hips, and she did not object, only smiled dumbly, her whole body tingling, feeling the air like she had never been able to feel before. It was cool and damp down here, and a slight breeze was being made by the HEPA filter, but the pressure on her hipbones made her feel warm. "And there's nothing wrong with my genes," Hojo informed her, moving his hands to her belly, cupping the soft flesh. Lucrecia did not stir from her stupor as Hojo pressed himself against her bent figure. He inhaled once deeply through his nose and out through his mouth, spreading the fingers on his hands so that he could just touch the elastic on her panties. He breathed in the scent of her hair before turning her around to look into her eyes, which seemed to be two big blue pools of utter compliance. In her current state, Lucrecia found herself staring past Tavarius' thick glasses and saw behind them eyes like thick black ink. He wasn't bad looking, no, not at all. What had she been thinking? His features were severe, to say the least; long thin nose and pointed chin, but he was what you would call swarthy. "Besides…" he whispered, hands now just below the mark of the injection, caressing the bare flesh that lay there, his lips not an inch from hers, "…I'm not such a bad guy, really."

"Oh, yeah?" she answered slowly.

"Yeah."

"I'll bet you aren't."

Pulling off his glasses, he let them fall haphazardly onto the desk behind Lucrecia. Closing his eyes, he approached her, in his opinion, painfully slowly, until their mouths met, his hungry, hers possessed, and she pushed back against him. Tavarius kissed her gently twice, before parting his lips to taste her mouth. Lucrecia's body unknowingly obliged and she followed his lead, then wrapping her arms about his neck, curving her back toward him. She found his lips soft, full, almost feminine, and in stark contrast to a body that was lean and wiry. He felt tough, unlike Vincent, who -

Vincent.

Lucrecia's mind finally woke up from its JENOVA-induced slumber, and found her body doing unspeakable things in the presence of her associate! It started off as a small scream in the back of her brain and finally exited as a wail through her lips:

"NO!"

Hojo, startled by this sudden unpredicted objection, broke his kiss but not his hold on her, "Is something wrong?"

"Get off - GET OFF!" she cried, struggling with him, though it was futile. He was not big, but he was much stronger and much more determined than she, not to mention he already had the upper hand.

"Lucy, tell me what it is!" he insisted and would not let her go.

"Get off of me, you sick fuck!"

He tightened his grip on her body, his tough fingers now digging into the puncture wound in her spine, hoping to disable her, but he failed. The injury, however, burned like a hot knife in Lucrecia's back and tears streamed down her face. "No," he barked at her, "No." His lips found her neck.

That was when she remembered the hypodermic. She groped blindly for it behind her, knocking Hojo's glasses to the floor, and grabbed the syringe by the needle-end. Not having the time or ability to turn it around to stab him, she instead used it as a bludgeoning instrument, aiming for his head. However, vision obscured but not defeated by his lack of spectacles, he dodged the direct hit but not the whole impact. Forcing himself to maintain a grip on her, Lucrecia was able to land a blow square on Hojo's shoulder. The glass syringe exploded under the pressure and shards clattered to the floor. Fortunately for Lucrecia, one remained embedded in Tavarius' flesh forcing him to relinquish her in shock. He grabbed for her, but missed, and by the time he had retrieved his glasses to follow after, she was down the hall and had begun her ascent of the winding steps.

It was at the bottom of this staircase the Tavarius forfeited, realizing how badly his shoulder was injured and bleeding, heart pumping as fast as it was. Hardly having caught his breath, he howled up the steps, "LUCRECIA!", his voice throaty and twisted with passion. She slammed the front door open and closed in response. Hojo sunk down against the cool wall, head between his knees, with hair and glasses quite askew, brain and loins throbbing. "Bitch," he murmured roughly, chest still heaving, "I'll have you yet."

_Keep it deep within yourself,_

But Lucrecia was free for now, and her legs carried her quickly down the front walk, and to the stairs where for the first time she faltered, tripped, and painfully face-planted at the feet of her savior.

"Lucrecia!" Vincent cried, quickly rescuing her and pulling her to her feet. The pain was so severe in her back that she could not support herself, and he held her, but away slightly to take stock of her dirty, bloody, and panicked face, together with her semi-undressed state, pants now down about her thighs. He then pulled her close to his chest, stroking her hair as she sobbed and gasped.

"Jesus Christ, Lucrecia, Lucrecia! What's going on! What happened?"

"Help me, Vincent," she moaned, "help me."

_and sink with me._

...Authoress' note: Ah, writing, my catharsis. How you free me. Please review; Lord knows you want to...


	8. Murder pt III

**Chapter VIII - Murder pt III**

_Dreams of his crash won't pass._

For years, now, he had been plagued by nightmares of that pallid face, those unnatural eyes, and everything that Sephiroth had stood for. He could see his smile, hear his laugh, both of which inspired neither happiness nor humor. Instead, he could feel five years of pain compounded by as many come since full of lingering paranoia. His mind was filled with images of the once-grand man, now a heap, brought down by his own hunger for domination.

Cloud could not often sleep these days.

In the dark, he sat up in bed, breathless, bead of sweat on his forehead which was now permanently marred by premature worry-lines, carved ever deeper by episodes like this. His face was twisted into a frown as he desperately tried to regulate his heartbeat. He glanced to his left where in next to him, softly illuminated by the glow of a hazy streetlamp out in the night, Cloud could make out Tifa's sleeping form, and it soothed him. The light seemed to play on her face cautiously, as though it only danced about it, too gentle to actually rest in one spot on her sleeping for, as though it may grow heavy or uncomfortable and wake her. Even now, she seemed to smile, and God, was she beautiful. It calmed him a little just to see her sleeping so sound.

She had fallen asleep with her arms around him, but during the night she had rolled away, and he noticed now as his eyes adjusted to the dim aura that she seemed to be hugging herself for warmth, though the evening air was muggy. Cloud covered her with the comforter and she seemed to relax beneath it though she did not stir; he could not say the same. Bits of his dream returned to his mind every time he thought he was tired enough to lay down again.

_Oh, how they all adored him._

"I'm gonna be just like Sephiroth", he could almost hear himself say as he began to drift, though he couldn't really be sure if he had every really said it at all. He couldn't be sure of much of anything. He remembered being a first-class failure, instead of the SOLDIER he so desperately wanted to be. Truth was, he was short, skinny, and handsome; none of which would get him very far in the military. His goals had been crushed and -

But he had wanted to be like him, The Great Sephiroth, and who hadn't? He just wasn't made of stuff so strong. But then…who was?

_Beauty won't last when spiraled down._

All who encountered him though Sephiroth perfect, but inside he was twice as ugly and sad as every one else. But he had been maimed, physically and psychologically, and by forces beyond his control. His purpose and place were inherently dark, and nothing could be done about it. Cloud wasn't siding with him, no, or trying to reason, or justifying it at all. It was just…he knew where it was coming from. Sephiroth was built as a super-SOLDIER, a grim reaper to the world, and when he had broken, he had become something absolutely uncontrollable, perhaps even to himself. He was something to be feared, for sure.

_The stars that mystify, he left them all behind._

Sephiroth had turned his back on every member of the human race, believing himself to be something greater, believing he was making up for year of murder of the Cetra, believing himself to be separate, though he was no less human that those who truly gave him life, his true mother and father, people who themselves were lost to the overwhelming persuasion of JENOVA inside their bodies. It was hard to say that Sephiroth was not doomed. But then, wasn't Cloud? Wasn't everyone, in some small way?

_And how his children cry…_

Mindless, soulless clones who had not found their way to JENOVA's Reunion still wandered about the edges of the earth, mumbling praises to JENOVA, to Sephiroth, though they could do nothing to save these creatures now anymore than they could help themselves. Cloud often lost himself for days to get away from civilization and would stumble upon these wasted creatures. Sometimes he would kill them; sometimes they would live. It depended on how merciful he was feeling.

It had only been five years since that final fateful day when METEOR threatened to wipe out thousands, millions, and already whispers and rumors of doubt separated hushed air. No one had ever seen Sephiroth. They never really felt the heart break. All they had seen was something falling from the sky, and a great blue-green light had seemed to save them all. Maybe there never had been a Sephiroth, they thought. After all, he hadn't come back, had he?

_…he left them all behind._

But Cloud knew that The Great Sephiroth had been real. He had seen him, envied him, defeated the monster himself.

He lay back against the pillow. He never though he would, but now, Cloud wished he could doubt, wished he could question what was real, what had happened on that day, five years ago. And ten. He wished, once and for all, that he could forget.

...Authoress' note: Cloud just had to go in here somewhere. Especially with lyrics like that. By the way, you don't know how hard it was to not type "The Great and Powerful Oz" every time "The Great Sephiroth". Oh, and you know what else? A REVIEW WOULD BE NICE+anger+


	9. Catharsis, Called in Sick

-1**Chapter IX - Catharsis/Called in Sick**

_Lean against the night and laugh as I try to scale the walls._

Vincent sat on the bed, eyeing Sephiroth up and down. His verbal assailant looked despaired and hurt and finally finished, sitting on the very edge of his bed, knees apart, arms resting on his thighs, head hung low. The sheets on the bed seemed to curl around the edges of his form, as though empathizing but afraid, much the way Vincent was feeling. Sephiroth's hair hung down, a grey privacy curtain, hiding his true face from the world, and the world from his true face.

Valentine, however, was not so easy in his somehow. He clung hopelessly to the corner of his bed, sucking the life out of his cigarette. The smoke burned his lungs deliciously, pain soothing his mind, eyes watering from both carcinogens and fear. Sephiroth's words had nested themselves into the holes in Vincent's heart, the freshened wounds bleeding. He couldn't resist his own thoughts: am I really just a psychopath? Do I really not love her? God, how could I not love her?

_Ignored futility fills the air._

Sephiroth looked up and caught Vincent's wandering gaze. For a moment, he saw again that familiarity, but it was gone as he exhaled a thick, blue could of smoke.

"And you live this way?" Vincent asked him, "accepting that you do not love and cannot be loved?" His fleshy hand continued to shake, as though gripped by some poltergeist or palsy, and he flicked an ash out the window into the rain.

Sephiroth's expression was an honest by weak smile. "Who would love me." The sadness of it was that it was not seeking an answer.

Vincent, embarrassed, could not respond. He turned back to the window and the night and watched the rain as it smashed itself blissfully against the cold, wet cobbles. Taking another long drag off of his cigarette, he closed his eyes and said, "What were you doing out there tonight?" and motioned toward the window.

Sephiroth rose, paced across the hardwood floor, and searched for an answer, though one seemed to elude him. No, that wasn't true; he had an answer. It was just…as he tried to put it into words, it seemed to make less and less sense. He had been out there, in the dark, in the rain, because he had wanted to lose civilization and find humanity. Sephiroth hadn't wanted to be alone, but being in and amongst people only made him feel more so. It seemed as though he was stuck in some sort of paradox with no way to escape.

Of course, he couldn't actually bring himself to say any of that, so he only shrugged and this enigmatic response only prompted another question from Valentine: "Why did you approach me?" The last time he and Sephiroth had stood face-to-face, they had been on opposite sides of a battlefield which was a great rift between one man and the rest of the world. Sephiroth didn't seemed to carry any of that weight now, except for that of the emotional strain with which he was now burdened. But he saw in Vincent at least someone he knew, perhaps even with home he share common ground.

"I thought…I think I can trust you," he answered. Another conundrum, but Sephiroth figured that Vincent had already exacted his revenge fire years ago, and had had plenty of a chance to lash out tonight. In his presence, Sephiroth was almost able to relax. He figured, too, that if he was going to die this evening, at least at the hands of this man he would know why.

Vincent lay his head on the pane and crushed out his cigarette between his thumb and index finger, before flicking it into the storm.

"You trust me."

"More so than a stranger."

"You trust and enemy more than a stranger?" He picked up his head from the sill.

"At least I know where you stand. Besides, we share something in common," Sephiroth said, and he meant it quite innocently, for he was still a simple creature. Vincent, however, was not, and hadn't been for sometime. Sephiroth's answer elicited at first something of a weak chuckle from Valentine, which grew then into a swollen, painful laugh.

They did share something in common, thought Vincent. They shared the cells of an alien woman whom they both would have been better off without. However, JENOVA was the source of Sephiroth's tragedy; it was the aftermath of Vincent's.

When his laughter died down, Vincent invited Sephiroth to sit on the bed beside him. He obliged, but slowly.

"Do you…" Vincent paused and swallowed. "Do you ever wish it would just stop?"

"Wish what would stop?" Sephiroth delved.

"This. All of this…I don't know."

"I think that's the problem. I think it already has," he ventured. "My mundane life never existed, you understand," he made a fragile sort of smile, more like a pursing of the lips, and it faded. "Everything has stopped. And this is just some…some eternal nothingness."

"Some eternal nothingness…" Vincent felt the phrase in his mouth. "That's exactly what this is, isn't it." It was no question, but a cosmic recognition of truth.

A shared, understanding silence passed between them.

_You're only there to watch me fall._

"Vincent," Sephiroth then murmured boldly, "you were there, weren't you? When it all happened? When I was…made? What happened, Vincent? What went wrong?"

"I…" Valentine began slowly, trying to word himself gently, "I think the horror of it all is, nothing went wrong."

…o…

_Let's admire the pattern forming._

The change in Lucrecia was not immediate, now was it drastic. In fact, the next few days passed without incident; however, this was probably due to the fact that Vincent would not allow her to return to the mansion, or even to check in with Gast when her pager when off, which I did, once every half an hour or so, at least up to the point where Vincent was forced to remove it from her person and wail it up against the wall, where indeterminate pieces broke off and flew into corners of the room, never to be found again. Oh, of course he could have taken the batteries out, and he knew this, but at the time, throwing the device, no matter how innocent it was in the scheme of things, seemed to be more appropriate, especially after Lucrecia had divulged to Vincent just what Hojo had tried, and how she had seemed to be trapped within her own body, her own mind. Throwing the pager was the Turk's display of how much he detested Tavarius Hojo and all that was connected with him, even it Gast was the one trying to check up on his employee-turned-daughter-turned-experiment.

_Murderous filigree._

The beeper left a small knick in the wall of Lucrecia's apartment, but Vincent didn't "give a shit, God damn it! - they can go to Hell for all I care!", and he then rushed to her side, to protect her, though she was already safe.

He stayed with her in the apartment, staring at eggshell walls and beige tile floors. He waiter for her to come out of the shell he has built around herself since she had cried to Vincent of Hojo's wrongs when she flung herself at his feet. On the morning of the fourth day, Gast has decided that Lucrecia's absence had gone much too far, and he knocked loudly on the apartment door, demanding answers. Vincent answered him.

"She's not going back there, Sir. I can't allow it," Vincent insisted, and the professor was taken aback.

"Valentine, I'm going to have to ask you to stand down -"

"No. I refuse. Now until you get rid of -"

Lucrecia stepped forward from her bedroom, hair brushed and tied up, make-up perfect, clean lab coat covering a white dress shirt and black slacks. "Sorry, Professor, I'm very sorry. I just…I just needed a few days." She took a deep breath and mustered up a smile. "I'm ready, now. Let's go."

Vincent was open-mouthed and wide-eyed, not to mention speechless. The transformation in her was amazing, but Vincent couldn't help but distrust it.

"Lucrecia, I don't think -"

"It's alright, Vincent; I'm ready now." Lucrecia was confident and proud and Vincent was powerless to stop her. This was what he'd fallen in love with, wasn't it? And indeed, how could he not? And her she was, walking out the door.

"Don't worry. I'll be back soon. I promise." Lucrecia smiled a lovely, wonderful, inspiring smile and her eyes seemed to light up, just for a moment. In that delicate instant, Valentine had an epiphany. Lucrecia's work was more to her than just another job - Lucrecia thought her work was about life, and the preservation and improvement of it. She wasn't playing God, no, she was playing mother, and now she finally had a chance to do physically what she had been doing mentally all her life. She was living her dream.

So where did he fit into her equation?

_I'm caught in the twisting of the vine._

Lucrecia winked at him and the both she and Gast were gone.

…o…

"How's your back, Lucy?" Gast asked, once the had returned to the basement. He was flipping through the records that Hojo was supposed to have made, and found them blank. Wonderful.

"My back?" Lucrecia was shifting around some old journals from shelf to shelf, to create some semblance of order. She slid one out of the bookcase and about six more toppled over, sending up a cloud of dust. Instinctively, she coughed, but stopped abruptly when she realized it hadn't bothered her at all.

"Yes, your back. The one with the spine that was fairly literally stabbed with a three-inch-long straw?" Gast put down his pen and looked up anxiously.

Lucrecia set down a stack of unbound paper. "It's okay," she replied, trying to repress Hojo's attack on her, "I'm okay. I mean, it didn't hurt too much, I think thanks to her." She meant JENOVA and Jeremiah knew. Lucrecia sucked on her bottom lip, then went back to work. Gast did not resume writing, only watched her for a spell, then inquired, "Have you thought about the baby?"

Lucrecia grinned, "Every night. What about it?"

"…Where is it going to come from?"

She thought hard on this for a moment, clearly not understanding the professor's meaning. Then, "Oh! I see. Yes. Don't worry, Jerry. I think I've got that sorted out."

Gast adjusted his spectacles and rested his elbows on the desk, atop many layers of paper. "It's that Turk, isn't it. Valentine. Lucy -"

"Jerry -"

"Hojo told me he saw you with him, in a bar. I though it was benign. I mean, who am I to tell you who you can and can't associate with?"

"Who are you to tell me who to sleep with!"

"You're sleeping with him?"

"NO!" Lucrecia was fuming. "What else did Hojo tell you, Jerry? Did he tell you what happened after you left on Wednesday? Did he?"

"No, Lucrecia. I haven't seen him since then, which is a huge pain in the ass for me, because he hasn't kept any of the records from then on either. What happened? Where has he been?"

"What am I, his keeper?" she threw up her hands, still frustrated and offended. Gast knew this.

"Look, child. I didn't mean it like that. It's just… I'm sure Valentine is a good man. But…he's a Turk," he rose from his chair and approached her. "You know what he does for a living."

"Because we're paying him to! It's his job! God, you sound like Hojo! Anyway, you're the one who said this wasn't about love!"

"But Lucy, I'm not stupid." He put a calm hand on her trembling arm. "You are in love, or you wouldn't be defending him this way. I'm just watching out for you."

Lucrecia wanted none of it. "You're so blind! Both of you!" She threw off his hand and stormed out. She needed some air, and some time alone.

Standing behind Shin-Ra mansion, the cool fall air swept around her like an embrace. Winter was on the wind, she could smell it, but the afternoon sun was warm and welcoming, and a few last desperate wildflowers swayed in a gentle breeze. Stripping off her lab coat, despite the chill in the air, Lucrecia felt good, just to be outdoors, and to be alone. She had been couped up to long, and this was nice. This was quiet, and good. She greeted the sun with an upturned face, closed her eyes, and leaned against the back of the building.

For a minute, she lay docile, listening to the birds and the wind, and the sound of her own breathing. And for a minute, she was calm. Her mind was clear. But her back carried a sort of tingling, and she reached around to touch it. Her eyes opened into the sun, blinding her, but that wasn't what mattered at the moment. Lucrecia was afraid - her back was moving against her will, and she was afraid that she was going to seize, or already was in some petit way. Was her body trying to reject the foreign cells? Was JENOVA trying to reject her body?

"Lucrecia?"

She jumped and turned at the sound of her name. Hojo.

"What do you want?" she hissed, then clapped a hand to her mouth, amazed at the sound that had just come from her. She was still very angry and afraid of Tavarius, and she did not want to be alone with him.

"Lucrecia," he repeated and stepped toward her, though she stepped back. He, however, seemed surprisingly sober in mind and body. "I saw Gast just now."

Vincent, the first thought in Lucrecia's mind.

"He…uh…says you're okay."

"No thanks to you," she spouted.

"Look. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. What happened…in the lab. I didn't mean it. I never meant to hurt you. But…for a minute, it almost seemed like…like you wouldn't stop me. Hell, it seemed like you wanted it." Lucrecia made to interrupt him, but he stopped her. "No, I know you didn't. And I'm sorry. I don't know how I can convey that to you. I mean…" and he stopped, and lowered his head.

Lucrecia watched him fro a moment. Did I really want it? she thought. Why did it take me so long to fight him off? Did I…I lead him on! Dear God, he's just a man. She touched her back again. There was no pain. Hojo had done his job, and well. If he had wanted to hurt her, he very well could have.

"Look, Tavarius, I -"

"No, Lucrecia, it's okay. I've asked Gast to move me to another project." She could tell he was forlorn, and she was stupefied. Hojo? Another project? But he loved JENOVA! He loved her as though she were really a person. He knew everything about her, and he was irreplaceable.

"Hojo. Professor. Sir. You can't do that. We need you on this. What happened, happened. No one…was hurt. Don't leave, sir." Lucrecia took a small step forward.

Tavarius looked up. Though he stood several inches above Lucrecia, he had always seemed small. Maybe it was his waif-like build, or the glasses and hair that seemed to dwarf him, but now he seemed almost diminished by his apology. To Lucrecia he said, "Ms. Winthrop, you're too good. Too good." His smile was awkward as he turned away from her, forgiven.

It was awkward because it was false.

Hojo congratulated himself on his acting, some of the best he had ever done, patting himself on the back mentally as he walked away. Yes. He would have her.

_I can't help my laughter as she cries._

_My soul brings tears to angelic eyes._


	10. The Mother in Me pt IV, Affliction

**Chapter X – The Mother In Me pt IV (Affliction)**

His hands were tangled in her silky brown hair, mouth pressed against her soft lips. She let forth a moan as he buried himself deep inside of her, and in her eyes was JENOVA. Yes. This was just how she wanted him, how he wanted her, and it would be for science, for science...

_Every night devise _

Hojo awoke covered in sweat, loose hairs plastered to his forehead. His covers were astray, twisted up about his legs and his pillows had fallen from the bed. Eyes wide, he sat up, collecting the covers over his bare body, making himself descent, though no one was around to to shame him. Slowly, Tavarius caught his breath, stilled his heart. He could barely sleep anymore; the dreams came to him so often and so...so loud. Climbing out of bed, he pushed himself into the bathroom, where he flicked on the light to view his disgraced form. What he got for his effort were two bloodshot but deep, dark eyes, a face that seemed to have been whitewashed, cracked, puffy, almost bloody lips, and greasy, unkempt hair. His cheekbones seemed excessively protrusive now, and Hojo was losing pound after pound, no matter how much he forced himself to eat. Shaking his head and splashing his face with water, he thought, I used to be handsome. He left the bathroom a soggy mess and didn't care; this was his flat, God damn it, and the security deposit could kiss his ass.

Tavarius reentered the bedroom, which was stark and minimal and practical, just how Hojo liked it. From his dresser he pulled soft cotton pajama pants, which he lashed tightly around his slender waist. The top drawer of this same furnishing contained Hojo's vices – a bottle of whiskey and a half-smoked pack of cigarettes, both of which he now removed from the drawer, hands delving in and amongst bundles of socks. Tavarius rarely indulged in either substance, and that was the truth – except when under great duress or great joy, the later of which was almost certain not to occur. But what he needed right now was a good, dreamless night's sleep and if he had to drink himself into a stupor to achieve that, by God, he would do it.

Sitting at his kitchen table, Hojo held in one hand a low ball glass, the other rested a cigarette between his index and middle fingers. It smoldered quietly, light blue perfume pervading the air. Tavarius' hair was loose and hung down around his shoulder blades and collar bones, and it fluttered gently when he moved his head to take a drink. It was soft, smooth hair, not wiry at all, shiny, but neglected. And it was black as night, just...black, not like the Turk's, whose thicker, coarser hair almost seemed to have a glow of brown, even red amongst it. Hojo flicked his hair away.

"Ah, Lucrecia." He smacked the liquor from his lips and tried to clear his mind of her, but it was like he was haunted now or possessed by these thoughts. Ever since the injection, the enticing site of the small of her back, and how closely she had let him hold her...oh, he had been fascinated by her, always fascinated, even infatuated, but it had never gone so far as to disrupt his sleep or drive him to drink. No, there was something new in her now that had developed over the past few weeks, something in her eyes, her posture, her voice, and it drove him mad. He could not be near her in the mansion without wanted to grab her and have her for his own.

_new heights in genocide. _

Hojo knew where Lucrecia was right now, and it burned in his empty stomach worse than the booze. She was in the arms of the Turk. Sleeping peacefully in the poisoned embrace of a killer. It wasn't right. Lucrecia deserved better than a killer, an under-educated filthy fuck. She was a beauty, and a genius, and an angel, and he was complicating her, corrupting her with every kiss from his cancerous lips.

She wanted to bear his child, it was clear now. She wanted to house the Turk's cells in her body and allow them to grow freely there, inside her, to grow into something that would feed from her delicate form and then bless the thing with the cells of an Ancient, and bless the Turk with those very same cells! What a waste! No, no. Hojo wouldn't see that happen. Not if he had anything to do with it.

_Lover I am loveless. _

...o...

He wasn't drunk, but he might as well have been for as well as he was managing to articulate.

_All my friends and I _

"Gast, surely you see where I'm coming from. We don't know anything about him. And you know why she wants him so badly, don't you?" Hojo was sweating profusely, trying to make his case. Shaking hands didn't help much either. However, Gast, to Hojo's pleasure, agreed.

"Yes. Yes, I can see."

Hojo smiled fiercely, the grin of a great white who had just found the scent of blood.

"Clearly," Gast said, "she wants him because he's tall, handsome, decent, not to mention someone who can protect her."

Tavarius blinked. "I'm...sorry?"

Gast continued, "That's what she sees in Valentine, and that he may be. But he could be a dangerous man, and I couldn't bear to see Lucrecia hurt. I'm sure you agree, Tavarius. However," and fidgeted uneasily with his shirt cuff for a moment, but found himself and went on, "I'm not going to make this choice for her, unless there is something not medically sound with the Turk. This is her body, her child. There is no scientific reason for us to intervene."

_toast health and suicide. _

Seemingly absent, Hojo let a word escape his lips. "JENOVA..."

"What was that, Professor?"

Tavarius grinned. "Gast, listen, we don't even know what JENOVA might do to this man -"

"Now, Hojo. You know the results as well as I do. From what's been shown, JENOVA interacts with all organic tissue the same way. It in-"

"'It integrates; it does not change.' Yes, I'm aware." He sat down in a chair in front of Jeremiah's desk. "I was only speculating." He smoothed his greasy hair.

Gast raised an eyebrow. "Well, your speculations are highly unfounded, Tavarius."

"That would be why they're speculations, sir," Hojo's voice was becoming heated.

"Alright, alright. That's enough." Gast motioned for Hojo to calm down with his open palms. Rising from his chair, he began to pace. "What if..." he issued after a few moments, "what if we gave Lucrecia another choice?"

"Another choice of what, Professor?"

"Of mate, Hojo, of mate. Why, I myself am much too old for a young lady like herself, but you, Tavarius...you're just a few years older than she, right?"

For a minute, Hojo could not speak. Professor Gast had not only walked right into Hojo's plan, but just had out-and-out recreated it and put it into action! "Yes...yes. Just a few years..." but now he had to play hard-to-get. Couldn't seem too eager. That would be...creepy. "But me, sir? Is that...I mean...she doesn't see me that way. She never will." In that string of words, Hojo voiced all of his fears and clung to them as he let them go.

"That's alright. She doesn't have to. You're right though. It would be much better to utilize someone like you. Someone we know, and can trust. Good man, Tavarius." Gast was proud. Proud! And he was ignoring every warning that shot through his mind. Something told him he shouldn't have said the things he had just said – what was done was done now. Lucrecia would be in in a few hours, and she would find out then.

Tavarius, as he walked away from the desk to return to his work, though he was going to explode, in more ways than one. Oh, it was his dream come true, in just a few days, he would have her and then he and JENOVA would never be -

JENOVA? Lucrecia!... JENOVA...

Hojo stopped dead in his tracks and for a moment, he could not separate the two names in his mind. It seemed they had become one lost non-entity, jumbled and united in his brain, calling to him. He tried to fit his mouth around the words, but Lucrecia seemed strange, foreign, bizarre. JENOVA was what he wanted, right? No! No, that couldn't be! But...why not?

"Because JENOVA is dead!" she shouted, nearly choked. Gast called from the end of the hall, "Hojo? Are you alright?"

He took off his glasses and mopped his sweaty brow with a sleeve. He never should have drunk last night. "Y...yes, Gast. Just fine. Just talking to myself."

"Well, if you start talking back, watch out," Jeremiah warned in light humor and dismissed the topic.

"Talking back, indeed," Hojo murmured. "JENOVA." His fingers delved into an inner pocket of his lab coat and plucked out a phial of blue-purple mass: living JENOVA cells. The cells were alive, but the organism was dead. It was conundrum indeed. The lights were on, but no one was home.

Hojo would have liked to have gone up Mt. Nibel then, just to see her, JENOVA, to make sure she was dead, but he didn't want to waste time. He wanted to be here the instant Lucrecia walked in the door. Slipping the tube back into his pocket, Hojo found himself a chair and sat down, and was content to wait.

...o...

Vincent lay next to Lucrecia in a half-asleep stupor. His eyes were tired, but he was awake, and very well should be – the sun told him it was approaching nine. He should be on duty in just a few minutes, he told himself, but then lied and let his mind believe he was, and that laying here with the sleeping lady-scientist was part of his job, because she couldn't get much safer than curled up in his arms, no sir. He kissed the top of Lucrecia's head, and she did not stir. She slept heavily, and often. But her work was hard, Vincent had no doubt. He could never do her job. Any idiot with a suit and a gun could do his. Right now, though, he didn't care. He had in his arms the most beautiful thing that existed on the planet, and she was fast asleep. If this moment could last forever, Vincent would not have been disappointed. It seemed, though, the moment he thought this, she awoke.

"Mmnmincent..." she murmured, and reached for the Turk's hand. Smiling, he eagerly wrapped her thin fingers beneath his, creating a protective shell around her delicate digits. She wriggled a bit, striving in a tired way to get closer to him, then thought out loud, "I should stand up...get up...gotta get to work," but ignored herself completely, instead finding Vincent's shoulder a pleasant replacement for her pillow. Her brown hair was like ivy and stretched out across the top of the bed, little curls and waves seeming like eddies in a creek. Valentine didn't want her to leave, either, but he was not irresponsible.

Shrugging gently, he whispered persuasively, "C'mon, Lucy, time to get up."

"Yeah, yeah..." she stretched laterally, curling her toes and yawning grandly. She stood up and the hair that had bedecked the pillows now slipped down her back, and the creek was a cape. "I'm up." Her night shirt was all sorts of disoriented, and she pulled it down, and climbed out of bed, bare thighs and knees catching the morning sun, enticing Vincent to pull her back under the covers, but he resisted. Instead, he scratched his chin thoughtfully, feeling the rough morning stubble on his face. His thoughts had nothing to do with this growth, however, and had everything to do with the woman bending over to search through a drawer. He'd slept in her bed for...months, now, and had never known her. Never...taken her. He didn't mind, not at all, he loved her, and was in love with her, but at the same time was not her lover. He wondered what she was waiting for.

_Oh, I will be all right... _

No. He knew what she was waiting for. Her work. It meant everything to her, and she made no secret of that. He didn't know if that meant that her work was more important than he was, but it didn't matter, not one bit, if she was happy with where she was in life. Vincent would be there for her, no matter what path she chose.

_just use me, _

Never once did he think that he would become part of her work.

...o...

"Lucrecia, Lucrecia, in here dear," Gast beckoned to her, hearing her footsteps coming down the stairs.

"I'm coming, sir, I'm coming." Quick footsteps brought her to her supervisor's desk, which looked as though it had been cleaned off and made ready for something.

"Have a seat," and she did. That was when she noticed Hojo sitting across from her, smiling. Really smiling. No ill blood lingered between them, and she wondered what the cause for such rejoicing was. For her, it would turn out, there was none.

"Listen, Lucrecia, Tavarius and I have come to an agreement of sorts," Gast beat around no bushes. "We have decided it would be best if the experiment could get in full swing now."

"Oh, good, good. I wanted to talk to you about that. I -"

"Now, now, Lucy. Just a minute. It's what we want to talk about, right now. You see, this morning Professor Hojo came to me with a few concerns of his. Lucrecia, we're very concerned for your safety, and you have to understand that. What we're doing here is very dangerous, I'm sure you know that."

"Professor, I know. But I've told you before, I'm not worried about that. This project is a part of me now, quite literally. I want to do this."

"Lucrecia, that's not what we're talking about here. The project will continue. It's just...under what circumstances. That's our concern."

And there was an audible silence.

"I don't...understand," came a small voice from the lone woman in the room.

"We want to be able to monitor this project twenty-four seven. We need all the participants to be on call at any moment. We need them to be otherwise unoccupied. Now, you know I'm not saying you can't have a life, you know that's not true. I know you, though, and I know that at the drop of a hat you would be down here if I asked it of you. That's the kind of enthusiasm and concern we need from all involved participants."

"Yes, sir. I know that, sir."

Gast pursed his lips, and then decided he had to tell her. "What I don't know is if Mr. Valentine would do the same."

"Professor?"

"He has other obligations, he has his job, for one..."

"Sir, I can assure you, he -"

"Now, now, Lucrecia, hear me out. I know you care for him and it's obvious he cares for you as well. But he's not really part of this project; he's got no background in science. What is needed for a project like this is someone who has no other obligations that might interfere with this, and who understands the full scale and depth of what we're doing here. And...I personally don't think a Turk is that kind of person. I don't mean that to sound prejudiced, but you know what kind of a reputation they have, and besides that, what if they were pulled out of Nibelheim? Or, God forbid, what if he was killed?"

Lucrecia shook in her seat, but tried to steady her voice, to reason. "Sir, I don't see why this is so important to the project. All we need are his...his...reproductive... Sir, he doesn't even need to be here."

"That's where you're wrong, Lucrecia. We're going to want to monitor him as much as you, what with the JENOVA living in his body. We want to see what kind of changes will occur on an otherwise unaffected human. You, carrying the child, will hardly be unaffected."

"I don't...have a choice. Do I."

"Of course you do, child. It's still your baby."

"What if I choose Vincent?"

Gast placed his hands palms down on the desk, signaling an ultimatum was at hand. "Then it will be your child, and his child, and will have nothing to do with us."

Lucrecia swallowed hard, one lone tear sliding down her cheek. This project was everything to her. She couldn't bear to let it go. She was in love with it...as much as she was in love with Vincent. She wanted this to be JENOVA's baby too. But she wanted to be with Vincent more than she had ever wanted another human being in her life.

And suddenly she had a plan.

"Then who...who would be the father?" she asked, though she already knew the answer, and Jeremiah's eyes turned to Hojo in reply.

Just as she suspected.

"Alright. I'll do it."

_just use me._


	11. The Mother in Me pt V, Love Like Winter

**Chapter XI - The Mother in Me pt V (Love Like Winter)**

_Warn your warmth to turn away._

The basement was silent but for the ruffle of papers and the sound of two people breathing. Gast had left for the day, and Lucrecia and Tavarius were left to their duties, which now seemed to encompass avoidance and silence. Hojo would glance over at Lucrecia occasionally, trying to catch her eye, but she seemed to be deeply involved in Gast's latest research, face buried in a book which contained naught more than a blank page, at which she was staring intently. Onto this page, plans from her mind swirled, the exposures in her brain developed, and she knew what she was going to do, though this made no smile play across her lips. No, a somber tone bedecked her. All she was doing now was waiting for the right moment.

It came at a quarter to five, when, if no extra work needed to be done, both Lucrecia and Tavarius would be clocking out. Hojo knew time was running short, and he had to ask her sometime. After all, he was now guaranteed what he wanted; it was just how to go about getting it. He turned around in his chair and said to the back of Lucrecia's head, "Lucy…"

"Look, let's just get this over with," Lucrecia responded.

"What about Gast? Gast should be here. What if -"

Lucrecia cut him off. "Yours doesn't have to be in the spine, remember? It doesn't have to be…" she trailed off before the words 'as painful' left her mouth. Oh, but it was going to be painful. No, not for him. For her.

Hojo fell silent for a moment, then offered, "You know, I can do it myself."

She stood, straightening out her coat, "I know you can. But I would feel better if I did it. JENOVA cells aren't something you screw around with." She approached a cabinet filled with specimens of various things: early SOLDIER cells infused with Mako, to see what the side effects were, animal tissues that had been captured near naturally-occurring Materia mines, and of course, JENOVA. There was more of here in here than they would ever need because the cells replicated by themselves, as long as they had a food supply. It just so happened that they seemed to feast happily on Mako.

"I know that, Lucrecia," Hojo was almost patronizing. Reaching into an unpacked box, he removed an average hypodermic needle, which seemed diminutive to the one that had punctured Lucrecia. From a near-by box, also neglected he retrieved an alcohol pad. "This has to go -"

"Right into your blood stream, Hojo. We should do it in -"

"The profunda femoris artery."

This was why they had been assembled as Professor Gast's team on the project. They worked well together, and in surgery, it almost seemed as though they had been able to read each other's minds. Lucrecia had been Hojo's assistant and a resident at the hospital where he was a supervisor before Shin-Ra collected them into their Research and Development department.

Lucrecia prepped the injection and turned around, then stopped, realizing just how awkward this was going to be. The profunda femoris atery is a part of the femoral artery which runs down along the inner thigh, The profunda femoris branches off about four inches from the groin. It's the quickest way to get anything to the heart, except for a direct injection or perhaps the jugular, but one doesn't really want to go sticking foreign tissue into the heart, or sticking anything into the jugular. Lucrecia sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she should have seen it coming. She could always just…close her eyes. She heard Hojo unfasten his belt, and turned the rest of the way. Thank God, she thought, he wears boxers. Tavarius slipped off one pant leg and placed his foot on the seat of a chair, so that Lucrecia wouldn't have to bend so much. Not that he would have minded.

"Ready Tavarius?" Lucrecia asked, but she already knew the answer to that question. Hojo only subtly nodded. As quickly as possible, tied a tourniquet around his leg, high up as she could go without actually having to touch him, and then located a vein. It throbbed beneath her fingertips and she had to hold a shiver. To her utter amazement, though, Hojo made no moves whatsoever. He didn't even look down to watch her. He only stared straight ahead and seemed to prepare himself for what was coming. Lucrecia couldn't really see his eyes; the glare that caught his glasses shielded them, but she sensed in him some sort of apprehension, excitement, even, though of a purely non-sexual nature. Quickly, she wiped the soon-to-be injection sight with the alcohol pad and lay it aside for the moment. Lucrecia held the hypodermic up to the light and gave the plunger a gently press to make sure there was no air bubble in the tip. From it oozed a silky green-violet substance, which she did not bother to wipe away. No, before he knew it, the needle was in him, empty, and out. No pain, no real sensation at all.

Then again, this was not Hojo's first encounter with JENOVA.

After dressing himself, he turned his face to Lucrecia, and removed his glasses. "Thank you," was all he said.

She smiled weakly, "It was nothing. It had to be done."

"Look, I know this isn't what you wanted to happen." He stopped, but she interjected nothing. "I know…how badly you…and Valentine…but it just wasn't safe."

"I know, Tavarius. I'm not stupid. I understand what Gast was saying." It was better to play angry than dumb.

"I know that, Lucrecia. I just…I suppose I want to apologize. This is more about you than anyone else."

Her head bobbed a few times, and she licked her lips, but said nothing, only turned her face away from him to find a record book to mark down the injection in. Gast would understand. He had to.

"Can I…can I take you to dinner…or something? I mean, that's never going to make up for this, is it? But I just feel like…I should do something for you." It was good that Lucrecia would not turn to face him, Hojo figured. Though his face was sullen, he knew his eyes would give away his glee. He only hoped it did not ooze out in his words.

Lucrecia was silent for what seemed like an eternity. She was pretending to weight the options, but she already had her course of action. After a few minutes, she made her move.

"Dinner…would be nice."

_Here it's December, everyday._

…o…

This was no bar. This was an entirely too upscale restaurant for two dirty scientists in lab garb, sans coats. Lucrecia's white shirt had blots of tears on it, and Hojo's had blots of…something. His tie was crooked and his pants were not pressed, but the greeter had let the pair in on the soul basis of their being Shin-Ra scientists, and Shin-Ra was not to be turned down for anything. Not when the world was owned by them.

They sat at a table for two. Tavarius had his hands stretched out on the length of white table cloth, whilst Lucrecia's were hidden modestly in her lap. Her head was bowed. Hojo wanted to reach out and tip up her chin, but they hadn't even ordered their drinks yet. Sympathy, that was all the present situation called for. Build, he reminded himself, little by little. Get her to trust you.

"Is there…anything I can do?"

Lucrecia blinked slowly. "No, Tavarius. Thank you."

When they ordered champagne, both were working opposite ends of an agenda to get to the same results for entirely different reasons.

After the appetizers were on the table, Hojo ventured into unfamiliar waters. "Lucrecia…I wish you were happier. It's such a shame to see a frown on such a beautiful face."

Well, he wasn't exactly Shakespeare, but she would humor him. Looking up from her Caesar salad, Lucrecia gave him a small, uncertain smile, something that could almost be taken as bravery in the face of insurmountable odds. At least, that's what she wanted it to look like. It worked well enough.

"There. That's what I'm talking about. God, you could light the world with that smile."

His flattery was no more than clichéd rhetoric, but they still had two more courses, over which the conversation didn't exactly improve.

"Can I ask you something, Tavarius?" Lucrecia braved him.

"Anything."

"Are you pleased about this?"

"About…"

"About me having to give up what I want to keep my job," she said bluntly, hoping to guilt him into a corner. It was working.

"Lucy, I didn't want this to happen at all. You have to understand, this wasn't my idea. I swear it." It wasn't a lie. Well, the second half wasn't. Sort of.

"That's not what I asked you."

_Press your lips to the sculptures_

"Am I pleased that you had to give up that…Valentine?" he paused, choking silently on the name for a moment. "No. Not at all. Am I pleased that we can be sure of the safety of this project and that I get to know a wonderful woman like you? Well, then I'd have to say yes, of course, but the means of that are under no circumstances pleasant." Half-lies, again, and it was harder and harder for Hojo to keep up his performance. A single bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck, tickling tiny hairs. It was almost painful to repress the shiver that glided up his spine.

Lucrecia sighed and turned back to her plate. Hojo countered, "Let me ask you a question, then."

"Go right ahead," she nudged a leaf of salad with a fork.

"If you love Valentine that much, why are you continuing this project? Why not just…give it up?"

"Because…" she breathed, "Whatever's between Vincent and myself is just for us. This project…with it, I might be able to do something for the world, and that seems more important than the happiness of two people, doesn't it? Call me an idealist, call me hopeless…"

"I think it's wonderful."

Lucrecia blinked, the universal sign for non-comprehension, and turned back to her food.

Dessert was on the table when they spoke again, though both now were full of the half a bottle of champagne that had been ordered.

"Are you…busy tonight?" was the irresolute question. It came from Lucrecia. She ran her fingers her small handbag, listing off it's contents in her mind one by one by one. It was still in there.

Hojo stopped chewing and looked up, eyes like a boy on Christmas. He didn't even bother to swallow his food when he asked, "What?"

"Well, you know," said Lucrecia softly, moving her fork in small circles demonstratively, "I was just thinking. Maybe we ought to get to know each other better. I mean, I hardly know a thing about you, other than how…" she paused, and almost gagged on her own words, "…brilliant you are. Perhaps we could talk…in a place…more…private." She forced a coy smile, which she was sure looked bizarre. Not that it mattered, Hojo was not inclined to notice. His only inclination now was how fast he could pay the check and have themselves out of here.

"Yes…" he said slowly. "You know, my apartment is only a few blocks away. It certainly is private."

_and surely you'll stay._

"Good."

…o…

Lucrecia didn't carry a gun. To be perfectly honest, they scared the hell out of her. Even in the hands of Vincent, she was squeamish and uncertain about them, though she knew he was skilled and practiced with the weapon, possible more so than anyone in Nibelheim. Maybe even in Midgar. After all, he made it his business to be the best. Tonight, however, tonight she wished she carried a gun. Second thoughts can do that to you. She wished she had a gun, and that she could reach for it, and shoot Hojo in the face as he walked beside her now. And if her aim was bad, if she missed him, well, she couldn't miss what she could swallow.

Sighing, she dismissed these morbid thoughts from her head and let Hojo link a thin arm around hers. He was positively beaming, and by rights. Look at what I have, said his face, look who I've taken away from the Turk. Oh, yeah. She wants me.

No matter how intelligent one human being is, no matter how skilled, in the case of most males of the species, sex can make them forget it all. Lucrecia stifled a laugh, disguised it as a cough. Thesis statement. Excellent. Now she had something with which to entertain herself. Tavarius was entertained enough as it was.

They had to climb three flights of stairs to Hojo's flat, but neither of them minded; Hojo prolonged the time he was with her, and Lucrecia prolonged the time she didn't have to look him in the eyes. The stairs, though, were lit brightly with fluorescent lights which screamed at Lucrecia's brain, showing her the obvious faults in her plan: they're nothing alike, the lights said, they're nothing alike and it's going to be obvious. Everyone will know. Everyone will know. What were you thinking? - You weren't, you weren't, it wasn't you, it was -

"Lucrecia? Are you alright?" Hojo was about four steps ahead of her now, and he twisted around, having heard her footsteps quieted.

"Je…yeah. I'm okay. I'm alright. What floor are we going to?"

"Three."

They were almost there then, Lucrecia surmised, and when Hojo reached his hand out to a door on a landing, she knew this was it. There was only one phase of the plan left to complete, for now. Then the second half could begin. She repulsed herself, but this was the only way it could be, if she and Vincent were to be together, and she could keep her job. It was selfish and shameful, but this was one of those 'the ends justify the means' things. Wasn't it?

_Love like winter…_

"Here we are," Hojo practically sang and reached into his pocket for a set of keys. Lucrecia looked around. The hallway was dull, a taupe color, with small lights placed every five feet or so. Door alternated numbers on the left and right from zero to fourteen, Hojo's being three-ten. Staring at the numbers nailed to the door for a minute, the light on the curves in the three and zero caught her eyes. When she tipped her head to the left, they seemed to swing with her, when she went to the right, they corrected themselves. She blinked the glossy sheen from her thoughts when Tavarius insisted, "Ladies first," and ushered her inside.

The apartment was small and sparse; a kitchen lay to the right, and the dining and living areas were one and the same, but the light that shone in through one of only two visible windows was deceptively warm and friendly, and it drew Lucrecia into the room like a plant toward the light. The whole of the apartment couldn't have been more than four hundred square feet, she surmised when seeing the bedroom, but it wasn't a bad place. It wasn't terrifying or particularly remarkable in any aspect, except that it was spotless. But even this wasn't unusual when you took into account the occupant's profession.

"It's not much," said Tavarius from behind Lucrecia. She smiled to assure him.

"It's nice." She paused, and fidgeted with her coat and handbag. Hojo removed his lab jacket, slinging it across a chair casually, and offered to take Lucrecia's. She gave it to him, and let him lay it down.

"Can…I use your…" she muttered, and he nodded,

"This way." He placed a firm hand on her back and lead her through the bedroom, which was as kempt as the rest of the place, and into the small white tile room. She smiled, and quickly shut the door.

The fluorescence lit up her face like the lights were inside her; her face was white, eyes bright blue, hair glowing and warm. In the mirror, she took a good, hard look at Lucrecia Winthrop. She was pretty, not amazingly or extraordinarily so, but she was pretty, she would admit that much. Her smile, usually confident, was shaky now, but for good reason; she was about to play Russian Roulette with fate, but it would serve her purpose.

But was it what she really wanted?

A part of her said no. Don't commit yourself to this, and don't lower yourself to this for sure. But most of her insisted, this is your life's work; don't be an uptight bitch. Don't give up. Don't surrender, most of all.

Wasn't this a form of surrender?

No, this was an exchange, she told herself. Or perhaps the lesser of two evils. Or something else cliché like that.

_For of sugar and ice,_

As she set the small purse down on the sink, she slipped off her pants, her panties. She withdrew from the bag a diaphragm. Unwrapping it, she carefully placed it inside herself, and redressed.

You may not be pleased about this, Hojo, she thought, but I sure as hell

_I am made._

...Authoress' note: I am so sorry this took so long to post. You don't know how hard this was to get out of me. This isn't the chapter I wanted, but like I said, this thing is starting to write itself. I have no control over it anymore. I just hope the ending stays the same, 'cause it's a really good ending. Anyway, the next chapter will be the last installment of the "Mother in Me" series for a while; not that the story is over, oh no. I just hope you're looking forward to more on Vince and Seph's current states, because once I turn out 12, I have a feeling 13 is going to move in a totally different direction. Let me take this one last moment to say thanks for all the support I've been getting lately. I'll try to update more frequently...


	12. The Mother in Me VI, Silver and Cold I

**Chapter XII - The Mother in Me pt VI (Silver and Cold ver I)**

_I came here by day…_

Lucrecia stood to face Hojo, trying to put her mind out of her body. She tried not to think that she had known this man for a number of years, that she had worked beneath him, worked for him, and that now he was reaching for her hands, pulling her fingers to his lips, and bringing her close to him. Lucrecia tried to ignore his mouth on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his hands on her hips, her waist, her breasts. She tried to ignore him taking off his shirt, and she tried to pretend he wasn't kissing her neck.

Tavarius was trying to pretend that she liked it. Hojo wasn't as stupid as he let on; Lucrecia was doing this to get it done and get it out of the way, but he wasn't going to complain, no. He didn't want her to fall in love with him, he only wanted to have her, touch her, know her. As he slipped off her shirt, he knew she was his.

…o…

She was in the bathroom again, washing her face and dressing herself. The contraceptive had not failed to the best of her knowledge, and now it was time to move on to the second phase of her plan. She was dreading this most of all. She didn't want to feel like she was using him, but she didn't want to be used by Hojo either. No. Without him, this would have never been a problem.

As she left the bathroom, she found Tavarius, dressed now, quietly smoking a cigarette and writing vigorously in a journal. By the sound of her footsteps, he noticed her.

"Ah, beautiful," he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke, "how are you?" He stood and approached her, reaching out to embrace her tenderly. His hair was free of his usual restraints, and it hung loosely over his shoulders, framing his face. He looked more masculine this way, with the darkness of his locks surrounding him. He pressed his lips to her forehead, holding his cigarette gingerly between two fingers in a hand that was behind her back. She bowed her head and allowed his affections.

The sun was completely faded from the windows now and a dark sky seemed to change the room entirely. It now felt small, oppressive, cold. A small desk lamp was the only source of light, and it did not seem a viable one. Lucrecia felt alone and small, and Tavarius released her.

"I should…I should go, Hojo." She uttered, shrugging to re-align her clothes. She felt uncomfortable and unclean.

"Yes. It's getting late," he agreed, "Let me show you to -"

"No. That's alright. I can find my own way out," she took a step toward the door, and around Hojo.

"Lucy, I -"

"I'm fine, Tavarius, I just need to get home." She moved quickly to the dining room table and picked up her coat which she slipped on and hugged tight. Hojo soon followed from the bedroom.

"I…uh…I'll see you tomorrow, then," he said to her, his open hands an offering until he lost them in his hair to pull it away from his face. She didn't answer him as she let herself out the door.

Hojo stood in place quietly for a minute after she was gone, just looking around the dark room. For his own piece of mind, he reached for the wall and flicked on a light. He then returned briefly to the bedroom to get a fresh cigarette, which he lit on his way back to the couch. Sucking in a thick cloud of smoke, he groaned.

"God," was the word lost in the grey he breathed out. A prayer.

…o…

The night was colder than any yet this year, and her apartment wasn't close. It wasn't far, no, but in this chill, it seemed forever. She longed to be sound asleep in the arms of the man that she chose, but she still had some work to go tonight before she could fall asleep. Lucrecia was anxious, Lucrecia was scared. Her mind was a dark place, and she was trying to run away from herself.

_…but I left here in darkness,_

Soon the heels of her shoes struck the familiar cobbles of Nibelheim's streets. It was a safe sound, because she'd heard it so many times, and so often. She checked her watch, which read eight forty-five, meaning Vincent's shift wasn't over for another fifteen minutes; he might not be home until nine-thirty, or he might not come at all. He had his own room at the inn, after all, and he might not come…

Of course, this was Lucrecia being paranoid - Vincent had stayed with her every night since she had flung herself on his mercy. She was only doubting him because she was doubting herself for what she had done. He would never know, he could never know, and he would never believe Hojo if Hojo squealed. But it didn't matter. She knew it was true.

She shook her head to free herself of the thoughts, and it worked. It worked as long as she could hear her feet strike the cobbles. But her apartment was close.

The door gave easily at the turn of her key, and she slipped inside as though she were breaking in. Dropping her keys and purse on the floor, she made for the shower like she had the plague. The hot water streamed over the curves of her body, and for a long time, she just stood there under the spigot, letting the steam fill her lungs. After what seemed like an eternity, she reached for the soap, so engrossed in her cleansing that she did not hear Vincent come in.

_and found you,_

Stepping out onto the cold tile floor, the steam of the room encompassed her like an embrace, and she reached for a soft, white towel, which she closed around herself, and then tucked in. The mirror had fogged over, and she wiped it away with the heel of her hand. In her mind, Lucrecia compared this new image with the one she had seen in Hojo's apartment before she had lain with him. Was it the same? Outwardly, no. Her hair was damp, and it seemed black and tired now, and only the beginnings of her bangs had begun to curl up. Makeup free was her face, making her seem much younger than she really was; she was nearly thirty, after all. She didn't have a single wrinkle yet, though, but she couldn't help but think that that was all about to change. Her eyes didn't even seem as bright as they had yesterday, and her face seemed a little wan. But she was still the same Lucrecia Winthop. Wasn't she?

She left the bathroom with a towel around her, and stepped out into her bedroom, which was welcoming. Her bed beckoned, but she denied her sleep and made to the kitchen for a cup of coffee to keep her up. However, she had a guest.

Sitting at the table casually was Vincent, his jacket unbuttoned, tie loosed, hair easily astray. He was the picture of the handsome rogue, and her she was, Lucrecia in her towel.

"You are beautiful," he said emphatically and rose to sweep her into his arms, placing a firm kiss upon her lips. "How'd things go today?"

Freezing up for a moment, her mind tried to think up anything and everything she could say to convince him it was the same as every other day. A million words flooded her mind, but it didn't matter. Before she ever spoke, her eyes gave it away.

"What is it, Luce?" Vincent asked, "What's wrong?"

"N…nothing. A problem…with the program. But don't worry. We should have it sorted out…soon," she diverted her eyes now, hoping Vincent asked for no further explanation. Lucrecia decided there was a God when he didn't. He only kissed her hair and then smoothed it down her back, little rivulets of water making a highway of her spine. Lifting her head to rest it on his shoulder, she murmured, "I love you."

"Love you too, beautiful," he sighed in return, pulling her closer.

She began to place gentle kisses on his neck, the first of which made him shudder; the proceeding he welcomed with open arms. Working her hands into his hair, she used it playfully as a lever to pull his head back, to kiss beneath his chin, which she was only just tall enough to reach.

"Lu…" he uttered, fingers splaying where his hands held her back. She pulled of his tie and unbuttoned his collar. "Lu, what…?"

"Vincent…" she looked him in his eyes, and he needed no further instruction. He swept her feet off of the floor and carried her into the bedroom.

_found you on the way._

It was midnight and Vincent was asleep, but Lucrecia could not. She lay in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the building creaking and groaning, speaking its own quiet structural language to the night. She listened to the gentle breeze that swept casually past the window, listened to it whistle as it would pick up and hum as it died away. She listened to a faucet, either in the kitchen or the bathroom, drip in a steady succession, one drop every three seconds. This was how she counted away the minutes, the hours.

The moon cast a glow in the window when the clouds surrendered it to open sky, making everything in the room shine eerily. She thought maybe she should feel afraid, like a little child in the dark, or maybe she should feel enchanted, laying here in the moonlight. She felt neither, only tired and nerve-wracked and desperate.

_And now, it is silver and silent,_

Vincent Valentine lay asleep with his head resting just below her naked shoulder, and she held him in the darkness like a child, arms tight around him as he quietly breathed the night away. She should feel happy, that's how she should feel, but this…this hadn't been how she'd wanted it. She'd wanted to be carefree and happy, but now she was burdened with something like responsibility and compulsion's bastard son. What she didn't know was now, how close that was to the truth.

_It is silver and cold._

Lucrecia would stroke Vincent's hair, or rub his back as he slept alternately, trying to memorize every scar in his skin, every line on his face, every strand of hair on his head. She didn't know why, but she felt as though she wasn't going to be able to hold him like this for much longer.

But she was happy, in a way, happy that she had been his, at least once, at least found the courage to give herself up to another person that she could honestly say that she had loved - did love - even if it was partially out of an alternate agenda. Regardless, regardless of the fact that this was something she had to do, regardless of the fact that this was her escape from what could have been nine horrible months of regret, she loved him, and she was glad now that he stayed to lay in her arms, to allow himself to feel safe enough in her arms to fall asleep there, silent face displaying not a care in the world. She just sincerely hoped it had worked. And she was only sorry that he could never know.

_You, in somber resplendence…I hold._


	13. All That Glitters Isn't Silver

**Chapter XIII - All That Glitters Isn't Silver…**

Lucrecia found sleep, eventually, and when she rose out of her slumber, Vincent was gone. She lay naked beneath the covers and hugged herself. Though the heat was on, she felt cold. She wished Vincent had stayed; she had the sudden urge to confess what she had done to him, to let him know that she had lain with another man that same day, but even when she tried to confess to the silence around her, the words caught in her throat, choking her, and she fled to the bathroom to purge herself of the sins in her belly.

_Your sins into me…oh my beautiful one…_

The walk to work crushed her; no, not so much the walk but the thoughts that followed her like a pet; they pushed down on her shoulders and her head, the weight of thought making her walk like a batter woman. She hoped she wouldn't see Vincent along the way, hoped that his post today was not the back door of Shin-Ra Mansion. Her wish came true; the guard at the door was a skinny brunette. Forces must be getting thin, thought Lucrecia; I could take that boy down. It was the first thing that made her smile all day, though even after that it occurred to her that it was a strange thought, wanting to fight, or even presuming to fight. She was not a violent person, or a person with a gruff sense of humor, but the visual of five-foot-nothing her taking down this five-foot-six boy in some sort of dive tackle almost made her laugh aloud. However, she swallowed this urge and continued on her way to work, down the staircase into the basement that felt more like a dungeon. She did not smile again, not for some time.

_Your sins into me…_

Gast was there, and Hojo was not. She wanted to throw herself down then, and confess to Gast what she had done, but she knew two things - that she would seem insane, untrustworthy, and at the very least, all of her hard work would be in an instant, undone. Instead, she sat herself quietly in a chair, waiting for Gast to instruct her, or inform her, or at least give her some mindless activity to do. Lucrecia, however, had not been sitting for more than a minute before a very proud Hojo strode in the door, upright, lively, and beaming. He had a cigarette in his lips and his hair was pulled back loosely, not tight and stark as it normally was.

"Well, well, well, Hojo," spoke Gast, who saw a difference in the man's behaviour instantly (indeed, it was hard to miss), "did you have a fine evening?"

_As a rapturous voice escapes I will tremble a prayer,_

Hojo put out the cigarette on the bottom of his shoe, and agreed, in a puff of smoke, "Oh, I did sir, and I should say that someone else in this room did as well," and he sent a look at Lucrecia that said, "You are a whore, and I love you."

Gast's look to Lucrecia was a little different, however. It said, "I didn't think you would give in that easily, and I'm disappointed in you, but you did the right thing."

_and I'll beg for forgiveness._

This was what Lucrecia saw in these stares, saw with a clarity she had never conceived before in her mind. It was almost as though she could see the thoughts of the men, and she was suddenly afraid, with their eyes boring into her, half of her secret clearly out.

The only thing that brought her away from this supernatural moment was the realization that there was a stabbing pain in her lower back, so sudden and strong that she slapped a hand to the spot from whence the pain emanated. She bent forward in her chair, and then stood, fingers clawing at the skin on her back.

"Lucy, what is it?" Gast reached out for her to hold her, her face distorted not so much in pain as shock.

"N-nothing, I must have pinched a nerve…" but unlike a pinched nerve, this pain did not fade when she stood, nor when she rubbed it, when she bended, or cringed.

"Let me see that," and Jeremiah turned her, untucking her shirt and pushing her lab coat aside. "Oh, my…"

"What is it?" the words came from Lucrecia and Tavarius at the same time, but with two totally different tones; where as Lucrecia's was anxious and nearly fearful, Tavarius' was curious, but slightly detached.

"Look, Hojo, come look at this," and he did, and Hojo saw then was Gast saw. All around Lucrecia's spine was a webby, spider-like working of thin, purple veins, veins that didn't belong where they were placed in Lucrecia's body. The all seemed to radiate from the same point - the spot where she had been injected with JENOVA cells a few months ago. Hojo and Gast shared the same thought - "But why this? Why now?"

"What is it, what is it?" Lucreica begged an answer.

"It seems to be…new growth…" Gast muttered.

"Growth? What sort of growth?" she demanded.

"New…pathways…veins, or arteries…they're…like nothing I've ever seen before. Lucrecia…" Gast ran his finger up one of the veins, and to his surprise, it pulsed under his touch. Lucrecia groaned. "Does that hurt?"

"No…not so much…it's just…it feels like I have a splinter…" she turned around, "what's it doing to me?"

"I don't know yet, Lucy. Does it still hurt?"

"A little. A little. Should we get rid of it?"

"I don't know…I don't know if we should, or even if we can."

Hojo butted in, "If this is some growth of JENOVA, then we should leave it be - this is clearly JENOVA expressing her will on her host, and this is what you signed up for, Lucrecia. Nothing can change that now."

"I know…" she mumbled, "I know…but you both promised me that this was safe. I saw the results myself, but you promised me this was safe."

"Lucrecia…nothing was set in stone. That's why you signed that waver," Gast meant to be reassuring, but was anything but.

"You're saying I'm going to die? You're saying this is hurting me?"

"Lucrecia, I don't even know what this IS."

_Your sins into me…_

. . .o. . .

Lucrecia set her things heavily on the table. It had been a long day, since Gast and Hojo had found the growth on her back. They had at first been delicate with her, simply sucking out bits of the veins with hypodermic needles, but when these proved to be nothing more than the same JENOVA cells that were injected into her, they split the veins in half with scalpels and watched purple and blue ooze from Lucrecia's back, but it never really came out, just as bleeding a person won't make their blood any less red.

Now her back was sore, and all they knew was that the infusions of JENOVA's tissue had been successful; cells were replicating rapidly inside Lucrecia's body, and were healthy, but as for why they had chose now to begin such a rapid replication was anyone's guess…well, anyone's but Lucrecia's. She was pregnant, she knew it. That was the only reason. And in two more weeks, she would know for sure. And Vincent would not.

_Oh, my beautiful one._


	14. Cold Hands pt I

(Author's note: Chapter 14. That's kind of a weird place to come back to a story four years later, isn't it? But with AFI's release of Crash Love, me coming into a lot of free time, and the timelessness that is Final Fantasy VII in all its new and wonderful incarnations -GUYS, WE FINALLY GOT ADVENT CHILDREN, DIDN'T WE?-, I'm picking myself up, dusting myself off, and trying to be the writer I once was because, and forgive me if this sounds arrogant, for being the video game and caffeine-deluded nonsense of an 18-year-old obsessor, this was some pretty good material, here. In short, there's no reason not to. That having been said, it has been four years. I'm going to try and be as consistent as I can be, but if any themes or styles or tones have changed, it's not so much that I've forgotten my work, it's that I'm almost a completely different writer than the one I used to be. The closest approximation, at least as it exists on my , is probably No Poetic Device, and even some of that sounds a bit strange to me anymore. So, if you're still out there, and you're still listening, welcome back to the ride. I really appreciate you hanging around. Finally, despite the fact that other things have been revealed about Vincent -his claw being a gauntlet and not part of his arm, for example- Lucrecia -her last name being Crescent-, and other members of Shin-Ra's Department of Administrative Research, I will not be changing these details in my story. As it stands, I am continuing this as though it were 2006: no Advent Children, no Dirge, and if you don't like it, I apologize in a completely sarcastic and dishonest way.)

**Chapter XIV: Cold Hands, pt I**

_How I regret what I must do but you've left me no choice._

Lucrecia was still dazed, eeks and ebbs of Thorazine clinging to the lining of her veins. She thought she had blood on her hands, but if it wasn't metaphorical, it had to be her own. When she'd awoken, her belly with all it's standard black stitching looked like the patchwork of a boy trying to darn his favorite jeans. She was in her own clothes now, she knew that, but her head was in a fog. Her vision was blurred and she wondered idly if leaving the hospital, leaving her baby, in this state was a good idea. She knew it wasn't, but 'not a good idea' was slipping ever backward into, 'am I dying' territory, and she couldn't be sure that she wasn't.

Midgar. She had her baby in Midgar. Lucrecia didn't belong here. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, but Gast, Hojo, those self-assured bastards, they wanted to get her the best medical treatment. Wanted to make sure nothing went wrong, that the baby was healthy, that their experiment ended – began? - successfully. Oh, right, and they wanted Lucrecia to live, though the farther and farther along she got in her pregnancy, the more and more secondary she had become. She had hoped this baby would give her a second chance, a second life, and so she had called him Sephiroth. The Tree of Life. Though Lucrecia couldn't remember where she'd first heard it, the ring of the name had always lived in the quiet parts of her ears, and under the circumstances, she could think of nothing better to call her son.

Her son. Her son and Vincent's. And she had to get back to Nibelheim, had to get back and tell him what she had done, that the baby was his, that she had been wrong, he had been right, and she was sorry. But she was on the wrong god damned continent.

Passing a hand over her lips, Lucrecia looked around. Midgar was for rich people, for shopping and excess and Shin-Ra. She'd been here once or twice and all she knew was that she was on the Plate. Sector... Sector 0, probably, but even of that, she couldn't be sure. Did she have her badge? Her purse? Yes. Her purse hung on her arm, and she could see the stars, and the heat of the day began to wan. Steady girl, steady. Lucrecia firmed her feet on the ground and took stock, forcing the sedative, the labor, the birth out of her mind. It was done and over. Her hair was a mess, she was sure, and she had on no make-up, but that was not a crime. What did she look like? Blood? No, that had been in her head. Her hands were clean. Metaphorically. The stitches held, though she needed to be careful. She needed to get off the Plate, off of the Eastern Continent, and back to Nibelheim.

A taxi, a taxi, she surmised. She could get in a taxi and ask for...a harbor? No, a boat would take too long. How had she gotten here? An airship, yes. She was Shin-Ra, she was a scientist. She had access to everything, with just a wave of her badge.

Assuming she hadn't been canned, banned, and disappeared yet. She stood on the sidewalk and tipped her head back. That was quite a stunt she had pulled, even for herself. She'd confessed to Gast, which was either the pain or the drugs talking, because now she felt stupid and emotionally naked. Then she'd bolted, the pain from the C-section burning in her belly like little embers spread along what would probably become a scar, a fleshly reminder of what she had done to herself. A reminder that she had abandoned a child to a corporation and an uncertain fate. Rubbing her bloodless hands together, she only hoped her boy, her Sephiroth, if he was allowed to keep the name his mother had given him, would make a better future for himself than the one she'd handed to him. Lucrecia wasn't stupid. She knew she could never go back. She would be more than a pariah, she was a traitor to everyone and everything. Except to her heart.

Was this a busy street? Rubbing her belly gently, she looked around, the mako lighting making more shadows than the moon might have. Could she call a cab? Was there a pay phone? She sat on the curb slowly, close to the corner so that she could see down four streets at once, just in case. The shops around her looked closed. It was late. One, two AM? She'd been wheeled into surgery at eleven on the fifteenth, and Sephiroth was extracted shortly after midnight. That much she knew, but how long had she been out? She inhaled, exhaled, and went through her purse. Yes, she had her badge, her wallet, all the necessities, but she didn't have an address book, didn't know how to call for a cab in this city even if she found a payphone. Lucrecia remained sitting on the curb, hoping that this was a busy street or that she could remain conscious until daylight when the shops opened again and she could ask someone for help. After all, she felt alright. Probably better than she should, thanks to JENOVA. Hell, she was probably lucky to be conscious right now at all.

Closing her eyes, Lucrecia took a moment to listen. She could hear the churning of mako beneath her feet, and the hum and buzz of the reactors. Something about the air here tasted wrong, tasted like ozone. This city was supposed to be a paradise. Why did paradise feel so cold?

There was a hand, a hand around her mouth all of a sudden. Lucrecia pitched and struggled, but when she turned about, the hand slipping away, she saw Gast, his weary face painted with concern.

"Jerry?" she breathed.

"Lucrecia, you need to go back," he said with haste, looking about, "You shouldn't be out here, shouldn't be seen." He pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles up his nose, eyes darting from side to side. "Look, child, I don't plan on tattling. The boy is beautiful, he's healthy, and you've survived. That's all we planned for, and we've got that. You can come back. If the boy really is Valentine's, then he's probably nothing special. You can take him home and be a mother, isn't that what you wanted? Why you agreed to all of this... this madness?"

Parting her lips, Lucrecia breathed in roughly. "Not like this, sir. I'm sorry. This is... this wrong. Monsterous. I can't raise -"

"He's already smiled, Lucrecia."

"Then he is special."

"Are you sure he's the Turk's?"

"He's Vincent's, and mine."

Gast shook his head. "Just come back, Lucrecia. He'll need you. You're his mother."

"JENOVA's his mother now."

Gast's eyes narrowed, not out of hate, but out of confusion. "How can you say that? After all you've been through?"

Indignant, Lucrecia spat, "After all I've been through, what else can I say? These cells, from the moment I conceived that boy, wrapped their arms around him and cradled him in my womb. They grew arteries and veins, supplied him with god know's what. JENOVA and I, we worked together to create life. But JENOVA will be with him for the rest of his life. And I'll be just a memory." Her hands shook and her eyes were wet. She wanted to mother that baby more than anything, but the more she spoke, the more Gast told her, the more the fear rose in her and clung to itself inside her throat. This was as wrong as Vincent had first imagined. "Gast, I have to go."

"Please, Lucrecia. Stay... just until your wounds heal. See the boy. Then decide."

She heard his words and realized there was no more pain in her gut. Lifting her shirt, she saw only a thin, red line and awkwardly bunched stitching. There was no gash. Only a welt and thread. "I've healed, it seems," she murmured to them both. "JENOVA may have served your purpose, but she'll live on in me forever. This experiment will have no end."

Gast looked at the ground.

"Take care of him, Jeremiah. Please."

"Of course, Lucrecia. Of course. As long as I live."

Bending, Lucrecia plucked her purse up from the pavement where it had fallen in her encounter with Gast. Then, not knowing where she might end up, Lucrecia began to walk.


	15. Torch Song

**Chapter XV: Torch Song**

_I saw you. Angels came to light your path.  
I heard you keep their wings pressed under glass.  
Now am I so enthralled that I might die?  
I saw you sweetly smile and say, "do try."_

...how?

How was he overcome?

A whiteness, a paleness surrounded him, and memories washed in and out, overcoming and underwhelming him.

"Mother..."

He had failed her, this much he knew, and his body felt as though it were being ripped apart and sewn together, ripped and sewn and ripped and sewn. He wanted death, his death, her death, and the death of them all. There was pain and pain was light. It took him many minutes to realize that there would be no release. Despite all that had been done to him, despite all that he had done, he would live. He would live and linger, broken and fractured, and then, he told himself he would grow strong once more. But it was oh so hard to believe as all of the air in his lungs was squeezed, squeezed away and forced back into him by some unwilling inhalation. Even if he thought about his breath he could not control it. He was being made to breath by a cellular respirator, and the cells did not belong to him. How many of his cells, his atoms, actually did?

He loved the ones that did not. He hated the ones that did.

_(Anything)  
I'd tear out my eyes for you, my dear.  
To see everything that you do._

But this familiar blankness kept him safe, this thoughtless nothing slowly restoring his bones and organs. His flesh quivered and stretched and he felt unimaginably cold, as though there was a wet chill in him that couldn't be shaken.

The feeling never really went away.

-*-

_I saw you so bereft so pale and weak.  
When I looked through,  
You and I declined to speak..  
I won't say..._

He had told her Sephiroth was dead. Her child, that monstrous creature. That such horror could have come from a precious soul baffled him, and he lied. He finally wanted her to rest. And if he had to lie, then he would. It was just a portent of things to come; Sephiroth would be defeated, would die, and his lie would un-become itself. Vincent had to trust in that. He couldn't let her know that her mutant of an offspring still lived. Was the weight lifted from her shoulders or was it a sense of overwhelming failure that made her sigh? He didn't know. He never saw her again. Would never see her again.

It was the only lie he had ever told her.

_(Anything)  
I'd tear out my eyes for you, my dear  
To see everything that you do. I'd do  
I'll tear out my soul for you, my dear, oh my dear,  
To feel everything as you do. _

_I do._

-*-

"Escape from a world of illusions... I wonder which is better."

"If she is happy then... I don't mind."

"Let me sleep."

_Leave me  
Leave me to grieve that nothing's lost, nothing's lost.  
But when you leave me, know nothing's lost. _

_Nothing's lost._


	16. Caustic

**Chapter XVI – Caustic**

_So I'm feeling much worse now;_

Lucrecia rubbed her forehead and found her hand slick with sweat. Working in the basement, her surroundings felt stuffier, hotter, more suffocating all the time, and every few minutes, her back would pinch or shiver and she would have to stand, stretch, rub the inhuman, unpatterened veins that had developed within her. Gast had mapped them, and found they ran from her spine to her womb, but they hadn't stopped; Lucrecia was now finding deep purple wires lacing her wrists, her thighs, and most disturbingly, the back of her neck. When she put up her thick brown hair, she had to resist clawing them away with her nails, and the urge got stronger and stronger with every passing day.

Leaning forward on her desk, she fervently rubbed her brow, hand quivering, making her slanted vision bounce up and down.

"Ooh..." she sighed as a wave of nausea passed through her.

"Mm?" Gast looked up from his work, a flash of light blinking against his glasses as he tried to catch Lucrecia's eye.

"We have got to get a bathroom down here," Lucrecia complained weakly, "or... fuck, I don't know. A bucket," and she swallowed bile once, twice, and stood slowly, suppressing a small contraction of the muscles in her lower back.

"Are you alright, dear?" Gast stood quickly and went to her, placing his arms around her middle to steady her. Lucrecia was only a month or so along, but already the pregnancy was taking its tole on her. She didn't know if her psyche or her body would be able to tolerate a full nine months of this general – and sometimes severe – discomfort.

Closing her eyes, licking her lips, she murmured, "I'm going to be ill," and glanced down the long hallway and to the insurmountable flight of stairs which stood between her and the one and only powder room in the entire mansion. She squinted, cocked an eyebrow, and quietly cursed the universe, but decided that that was too broad, and cursed some unknown architect instead. Jeremiah's jaw dropped slowly, and his eyes darted around for something, anything for Lucrecia to vomit into. Releasing her, he went to the side of his desk and retrieved a small, green, wastepaper basket and presented it to the woman, holding it just below her chin. As if on queue, Lucrecia's arms shot out, grabbed the bin, and she hunched over, emptying her gut into the unsuspecting receptacle. Gast politely diverted his eyes, rubbing Lucrecia's quivering back soothingly.

When she was done, she sat the can on the floor, collapsed into her desk chair, and shook as though she were naked in the snow. Slowly, she looked up at her boss and whimpered, "Sir, I'm calling in sick." Jeremiah nodded vigorously and offered, "Do you need me to walk you back to your apartment? It's almost my lunch."

"N-no. I can make it back. I just need some quiet, I think, and some air. There's not enough circulation down here," she displaced the blame, waving her hands in small circles as though that would solve all of her problems.

From the back room where Hojo was working, he called, "We should start you on a better diet, for you and for the baby." It was a valid suggestion, Lucrecia knew that, and probably the best one for her since she couldn't take anything stronger or more dangerous than an anti-acid during the experiment-cum-pregnancy for fear of unexpected effects, but in her current state and current state of mind she shouted back, "Or you could carry the little fuck," then she slapped her hands over her mouth and apologized in hasty and mumbled fashion, "Oh, Lord, I'm sorry, Tav, I didn't mean that, I -"

She looked toward the back and saw Hojo smiling, his eyes to his papers and his left hand waving away the comment as though it were a gnat. Lucrecia took her hands away and smiled back, looking at the floor.

There were hands on her back, and Gast was pushing her out of the door. "Go _home_, Lucrecia. Get some rest. Eat something fattening."

"Eat. Hah," she scoffed and walked slowly down the hall.

Once she was out of earshot, Gast approached Hojo. "I'm worried about her. She's not even showing yet and she's experiencing some pretty severe side-effects."

"She's _pregnant_, Gast. If that's not a good enough reason to be batshit for the better part of a year, tell me what is," he dismissed. Everything was fine, he was sure of it. It couldn't be JENOVA, no. After all, Tavarius had more of those cells in him than she did, and he was fine. She was a hormonal woman.

_You're better, you're better._

"Hojo."

"Gast."

Feeling ignored, Jeremiah shook his head and walked away. Behind his back, Tavarius gave him the finger and a frown.

_Your designer drug  
Won't work, won't work for me._


	17. Prelude Revisited

**Chapter XVII – Prelude Revisited pt I**

_This is what I brought you,_

_This, you can keep._

_This is what I brought; you_

_May forget me._

_I promise to depart,_

_Just promise one thing..._

It was late January when Vincent finally decided Lucrecia's flu was not the flu. There was a soft snowfall, the flakes which descended looked more like glitter than ice. Slowly, unassumingly, it collected between the cobbles of Nibelheim and purified the earth in a way that Vincent wished his heart could be.

He waited for her outside of Shin-Ra mansion; he was not on duty but it was the only place he knew he could intercept her before she made it home, and while he could have waited at her apartment, he really couldn't. Something twisted in his gut and made him ill. Worrylines found themselves deepening on his forehead. He rubbed his thumbs against the knuckles of his index fingers and steeled himself, going over what he might say in his head.

Vincent didn't know why he was so uneasy. Well, he did, but at the same time, he thought he should be proud, or at least excited. But all he felt was dread.

The door swung open. Valentine's eyes flicked up from the ground to the exit, but he didn't see Lucrecia. It was two black, beady, bespectacled eyes which judged him as he waited.

"Hojo," he mumbled.

"Valentine," Hojo responded, very sure of himself. "Still hanging on, I see," and the scientist grinned broadly, foully, the white of the snow reflected in his glasses as he turned his attention to his route home and away from Turk, displaying his blatant disinterest in anything that did not directly involve himself.

Vincent did not respond, only sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and bit down gently to avoid busting Hojo's lip open.

Hojo flicked his eyebrow up tauntingly and cryptically spoke, "You're a stronger man than I." With that, he walked away, swaying a little bit to show off his perceived superiority as the snow collected on his pitch black hair.

Compelled by the site, Vincent flicked his head to avoid the same appearance, dusted off his shoulders, stood straight, pulled his leather jacket down, anything to avoid looking like that crooked bastard. He was glad that he did, for moments later, it was Lucrecia who walked through the door, cheeks flushed. Lucrecia hadn't had a normal color in weeks. Today she was red. Vincent couldn't decide if this was an improvement over her usual ghastly pallor or a sign of worse to come.

"Oh, Vincent," she groaned, walking to him and giving him a squeeze. "It's so hot in there..."

"Lucrecia, it's like thirty-five degrees," he countered gently, "and I don't think there's heat in there."

She shrugged and took his hand as though all were right in the world, and rubbed her back with the other. He didn't know why she thought she could keep it a secret; she even had a tummy-bump at this point, especially when she arched her back to sooth the pain she constantly insisted wasn't there.

Vincent paused and threw his hands to his sides. "Babe, we've gotta talk."

Lucrecia's eyelids fluttered and the smile washed away from her face. "Vincent... Now?"

He firmed his jaw. It was snowing, they should go inside. But she didn't seem to mind, and if it got him an answer, he could bear it. "Now."

Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and then back again, she looked everywhere but in Vincent's eyes as she falsely asked, "About what?" which lacked any interrogative inflection.

He took her arm gently and pulled her away from the mansion a bit, up against the garden wall and away from any prying eyes or ears, though Hojo had already gone and he didn't really think anyone else would be terribly interested in what she had to say to him. "Why have you been lying to me, Luce?"

"Lying?"

Vincent lurched. Was she really playing this game? No, he decided. This was enough. "Don't fucking do this, Lucrecia. Don't fucking jerk me around and expect me to like it," he pointed at her with a gloved finger and fixed his gaze on hers. "This God damned flu bullshit you've been feeding me for weeks has gotta stop. Do you think I'm dumb or blind or both? Don't _fucking_ do this to me. You told me about your little experiments and I've seen your back and I deserve to know the truth." His voice was deep and gruff. He backed away from her, displaying his solidarity until she would speak. His breath came out in jagged, foggy puffs; the finger he pointed at her trembled gently.

He saw the tears in her eyes but he did not move, even when her small chin quivered. Lucrecia brought her hand to her mouth and pinched her lips nervously, knowing there was nothing more she could do, no more time left for her to put this off. All she had left to preserve her dignity was to carefully choose her words.

"Vincent, I..." she ran her fingers through her hair and looked away, "Yes. I'm pregnant." She sighed and tears dripped down her cheeks and off of her chin, absorbing into her lab coat which was the only coat she had on.

Vincent lowered his arm. His lips parted, and he blinked, tipping his head sideways, and for a moment, all his apprehension was gone. He sucked in a deep breath, let it out quickly, drew another, and he closed the distance between himself and Lucrecia, unable to speak. Reaching out to her, he pulled her against him, to his chest, and took a moment to wrap his coat around her small body. Swallowing, he put a hand on her hair, kissed her forehead, and breathed, "I love you. God, I – I'm..."

Lucrecia closed her eyes, choked back a sob, and breathed, "Vincent, it's not yours." The words sucked everything out of her.

Vincent did not let go, but did not move. Softly he uttered, "What?" His arms slipped and he took a step back, his eyes darting over the landscape, the house, the ground, eyelids working furiously to keep away the tears.

"I'm so sorry, Vincent, I -" she tried to explain about the project, about her plans for the future, but made her stop.

"You're sorry? You're... sorry?" He backed away, toward the walk, trying to escape. He rubbed an eye and sniffed, licking his lips and sighing. "You..." You what? You whore, you bitch, you cheat, but she was none of those things. She was a scientist and she was doing her work, the work she had told him about before he'd even entered into this relationship. He knew it would happen, and he allowed himself to love her, to make love to her, to make plans around her. The dread was back, the twisting in his guts, and his feet worked backwards to carry him away from her, but she followed.

"Please, Vince, please, listen to me," she begged, skin white now with cold and fear.

He stopped long enough to gaspingly ask, "How can you be sure?", his last fleeting hope; despite the fact that she had been with someone else, she had also been with him, more than once.

"You don't... you don't think with all of the tests that they've been running on me, all of the things they've been putting into me, that they hadn't checked?" And they hadn't, to be honest, thanks to Hojo's overwhelming self-assurance and Lucrecia's ability to downplay the details of any personal relationship. Gast was trusting and Hojo was an egomaniac, and that was all either of them needed.

"You promise? You swear to God?" He didn't know why he kept asking, except that he hoped she might be joking, but if she was, he certainly couldn't see the humor.

And she just kept nodding.

It was the only time she'd ever lied to him.

Valentine's breath came quickly and hyperventilation threatened. His lips pulled back and formed a twisted expression of shock which could have been mistaken for a rancid smile. He wiped his nose. "Don't... I d- I don't... Just... go away, Lucrecia. Go away." Sobbing once, he turned around and shoved his hands into his pockets, hugging himself in some small way as he headed back to his own room at the inn, leaving hasty footprints in the thickening snow.

Lucrecia wanted to follow, but she stood frozen to the spot, nearly to the front gate of Shin-Ra mansion. Quiet tears wracked her body and her knees buckled. She collapsed, throwing her hands out in front of her and skinning them badly. Sitting side-saddle in the snow, she watched the blood pool up in the palms of her hands and like a child, she blew on them in the hope that it would make the stinging stop.

"Lucrecia?" she heard Gast's voice from behind, his footsteps crunching in the snow. "Dear, are you alright?"

"I... I'll be fine. I fell. Ice."

"Where's your coat?" he knelt before her and stroked her hair. She looked down.

"Well, that won't do, certainly not in your condition," he said, and carefully helped her up, taking off his own coat and wrapping it around her shoulders, and for a moment she felt the sensation of being wrapped in Vincent's coat again. She bit her tongue. "Let's get you back to your apartment, shall we, and I'll take a look at your hands."

"My hands are fine, sir." It's my heart that's broken.

-*-

_This is what I brought you,_

_This, you can keep._

_This is what I brought; you_

_May forget me._

_I promise you my heart,_

_Just promise to sing..._

"Vincent, please answer your phone. Don't make me come by there, not again. Please, can we just talk? I'm not even asking you to forgive me, I don't expect you to. I just... Can I please hear your voice? I... I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm sorry. Please call me."

He listened to his voicemail in a trance, eyes drooping, ears following the rhythm of her voice, but not really hearing the words. He didn't need to. He'd listened to the message at least ten times today. It was three days old. Vincent wondered how long he would hold out. Part of him knew he would call her back.

Rubbing the corner of his right eye with his ring finger, he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. He wished he were drunk as he replayed the message one more time, but he'd never been much of a drinker. The phone lay on the pillow beside his head. He didn't even hold it to his ear as he listened again.

"Vincent."

He thought it was the phone message again, until he turned his head and Lucrecia was standing in his doorway.

"How...?"

"The attendant recognized me and gave me the key. I'm sorry, I should have knocked, but I didn't think you would answer."

Eyes still reading the cracks in the ceiling, he confessed, "I would have." After a pause, he sat up and crossed his legs. It had only been a week since he'd last seen her, but it was ridiculously obvious now just how pregnant she was. Was he really so blind before? How had he believed her for so long? Regardless, she looked much better now. There was color, normal color in her cheeks, and her eyes had their sparkle back. In fact, they almost glowed.

He, on the other hand, was disheveled. His hair was unwashed, unbrushed, his shirt was unbuttoned half way and his pants were the opposite of pressed. He was not a vain man, but Vincent was careful about his appearance. Now, though, he was wearing his heart on his wrinkled sleeve.

Lucrecia began to approach him, and he pursed his lips, putting his bare feet on the cold hardwood. It took him an instant to decided what he wanted to do, and in a flurry of movement, he grasped her forearms and pressed his lips to hers hotly. Lucrecia's eyes shot open, then slipped closed as her own arms snaked around his neck and she allowed him to carefully pull her into his bed.

Cautiously, delicately, he made love to her, and the way she breathed his name wiped any lingering doubts from his mind.

"I'm sorry, Luce," he admitted to her as he cradled her small body in his arms. "I should have respected you... your work. I knew this was going to happen. I just didn't think... I mean, I just didn't think." He closed his mouth, closed his eyes, and wanted to sleep, but one last thing nagged at him. "Can I ask a ...personal question?"

"Mm."

He propped himself up on his elbow and started to speak before he new how to arrange the words. "How did you... Did you actually... Was it arti...fic...ial..." he finally sputtered.

Lucrecia frowned.

"Okay, alright, that's fine," he laid back, defeated. "I just wanted to know." He sighed, puffing out his cheeks. He wasn't much of a drinker.

Oh, and how she wanted to tell him, as she lay there, bare to him physically and emotionally, hiding only the facts now. She wanted to tell him that the only way she could have tricked Hojo, Hojo _and_ Gast was to make like a whore and hide her birth control between her legs, and hope and pray to God that Vincent knocked her up within a few days of that disgusting encounter, and that she was thrilled that she was not carrying Hojo's child and disgusted that he thought she was. And, oh, she could trust him, too. She could trust Vincent with anything. Lucrecia knew that. What she could not trust was that Vincent would not become invested in the pregnancy, the child, and that he would put a stop to the whole thing, and it all would have been for naught. Lucrecia squinted her eyes, rubbed her temples furiously. God damn it, she sighed, why can't I just hate my job like everyone else.

"Are you alright?" Vincent asked, and Lucrecia looked at him. "You look in pain."

"It's a headache," she only half-fibbed. "I've been getting them since... well, you know. It's normal."

And Vincent did something that Lucrecia did not expect, something she almost wished he would not do. Almost. He turned to her and lay a hand on her belly. And he smiled.

"As long as that's it. That this," he motioned to the small bump, "this is it. As long as you're happy."

Lucrecia began to cry. She was happy. "You have no idea," she laughed.

-*-

(**Author's note:**__ I know this is quite a long chapter to add an author's note to, but I figure you've read this far, which is kind of the point. I don't know how many of you are "serious" bloggers, but recently we did something called "Delurker's Day" which is what it sounds like; if you frequent the blog and don't typically comment, you were supposed to leave a comment even just to say hi. That's what I'm asking of you! Leave a review. It doesn't even actually have to be a review. Just let me know you're out there, and I've got your attention. Tell me your name. Talk about music. Hit counts are nice, but they're impersonal, and I want to get to know my readers! I also want to say thanks for sticking with me/joining me in 2010!)


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